
Book J^1^._4jr' 



CtiPYHlGUr DtPUSU^ 



/ 





MIRABEAU. 

ORIGINAI, IN THK ART COLLECTION OK BOWDOIN COLLKGE. 



The 

French Revolution 

A Sketch 



2- i ' "'■ 



BY 

SHAILER MATHEWS, A.M 

PROFESSOR IN THE UNIVERSITY 
OF CHICAGO 




tC^e Cljautauqua ^pre^s! 

CHAUTAUQUA, N. Y. 
MCMIV 



c 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
TwoCtoles Received 

JUL 14 1906 

{] Cppyriirhi Entry 
;€LASSOL.^^kXc. No. 

/6^o Col 

COPY B. ' 



Copyright, 1900 
By Shailer Mathews 



All rights reserved. 



First Edition ' (i^ublished at the 
Chautauqua Pre^s) 1900. Second 
Edition, revised, January, 1 90 1. 
Third Edition, August, 1901. 
Fourth Edition, June, 1904. 



PREFACE 

For the student of society, the few years that 
elapsed between the assembling of the States General 
and the appearance of Napoleon Bonaparte afford 
material altogether unequaled for a study in social 
psychology. Few indeed were the political theories 
and proposals for social amelioration that were not 
then tried. Nor dares one say that these attempts of 
philosophers so desperately in earnest to bring in lib- 
erty and equality were altogether futile. Because of 
the constructive genius of Napoleon, they had lasting 
and, in the main, beneficial results. But there were 
few of the reform movements then inaugurated that 
were given anything like normal conditions for trial. 
Revolutions are not the best means by which to bring 
about permanent reforms, any more than fevers are 
the best means of bringing about improvement in one's 
health; but they are not pathological. No decaying 
people has vitality enough to carry through a revolt 
to such constitutional changes as make it worthy the 
name of revolution. In France, just as in America 
a few years before, and in England in the preceding 
century, revolution was the outcome of national conva- 
lescence, of a socialized conviction of injustice, and 
of a universal determination to install justice. It was 



vi Preface 

the expression of popular hatred with abuses — political, 
social, ecclesiastical, economic — which, if properly 
met and controlled, might have been turned into the 
more quiet ways of reform. Nor was it a product 
of Paris alone. It was the work of a great nation, 
provinces as well as capital, and to appreciate its 
significance, the student must never confuse tempo- 
rary mob rule with a national awakening. 

It is this need of studying the spirit of the French 
people quite as much as their deeds, that has led to 
what may appear, in a book of this size, a somewhat 
disproportionately extended treatment of the pre- 
revolutionary condition of France. But the change 
of temper which made the Old Regime unendurable 
and compelled Louis to summon the States General, 
was by far the most important element of the Revo- 
lution. One might properly call it the Revolution 
itself, so completely were the years of violence under 
the Convention the outcome of the attempt to preserve 
advantages the Constituent Assembly had gained. 
To understand the conditions which were outgrown 
and the origin and growth of the revolutionary spirit, 
seems, therefore, quite as necessary as to trace the 
history of the destruction of abuse and the struggle 
for liberty and rights. 

While novelties in historical matter are always to 
be suspected, it cannot be denied that the light 
thrown upon the French Revolution by recent investi- 
gators compels a revision of some of the judgments 
of the past. Especially is this true of leading revo- 



Preface vii 

lutionists like Danton and Robespierre, and quite as 
much so of the nature of the Terror. As the present 
volume is intended for the general reader, I have not 
judged it necessary to give specific authorities for 
some of the restatements which have appeared neces- 
sary, but have contented myself with giving refer- 
ences to the chief authorities and sources at im- 
portant points. In addition, general references to 
English historical literature have been given for the 
benefit of those who, though not special students, 
may care to read somewhat widely. 

The inadequacy of any brief history of the Revolu- 
tion can be felt by no one more than by its author, 
and it is almost unfriendly to involve others in one's 
own shortcomings, but I cannot refrain from ex- 
pressing my thanks to Dr. J. W. Fertig, of the Lewis 
Institute, Chicago, and Dr. VV. K. Clement, who have 
read the proofs of the book, and to Professor A. W. 
Small, of the University of Chicago, for many helpful 
suggestions. But for them this attempt at reworking 
college lectures would have been even more marked 
by errors than, I fear, it is now. Thanks are also 
due to Professor G. T. Little, of Bowdoin College, 
for the reproduction of the portrait of Mirabeau, the 
original of which was discovered in Paris by James 
Bowdoin, and is now in the art collection of Bowdoin 
College. My indebtedness to the works of Von Sybel, 
Aulard, Sorel, and H. Morse Stephens will appear on 
every page. Shailer Mathews. 

The University of Chicago, July i6, 1900. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



Portrait of Mirabeau . . . Frontispiece 

ORIGINAL IN THE ART COLLECTION OF BOWDOIN COLLEGE 



PART I 

FRANCE AT THE OUTBREAK OF THE REVOLUTION 



CHAPTER 



PAGE 



I The Absolute Monarchy . . . . i 

II The Privileged and Unprivileged , . 12 

III Social Contrasts and Morality . . . 3» 

IV The Clergy and Religion ... 42 
V Intellectual Emancipation through Philos- 
ophy ....... 52 

PART II 

THE BEGINNINGS OF THE REVOLUTION 

VI The Development of the Revolutionary Spirit 

under Louis XV .... 73 

VII The Reform Movement under Turgot and 

Necker . . . . . . .91 

VIII Bankruptcy and the Convocation of the 

States General ..... 102 

PART III 

THE attempt at CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY 

IX The States General and the Evolution of the 

National Assembly . . . . m 

X The Uprising of the Masses . . . 125 

ix 



X Table of Contents 

XI The End of the Old Regime . . . 138 

XII The Reorganization of France . . 150 

XIII The Progress of the Revolutionary Spirit . 166 

XIV Foreign War and the End of the Monarchy 182 

PART IV 
THE REPUBLIC 

XV The Jacobin Conquest ..... 207 

XVI The Reign of Terror as a Political Experi- 
ment ....... 224 

XVII The Republic under the Terror . . . 234 

XVIII The Dictatorship of Robespierre . . 252 

XIX The Return to Constitutional Government 266 

Chronological Summary ,.,,,. 287 

Index . . , , , . » , , 291 



THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 



PART I 



FRANCE AT THE OUTBREAK OF THE 
REVOLUTION 



CHAPTER I 

THE ABSOLUTE MONARCHY 

I. The Absolute Monarchy in France: i. Its Rise through the 
Centralization of Feudal France; 2. The Councils, Parle- 
ments, and the King; 3. The Provincial Administration, 
(a) the Provinces, {d) the Intendances, [c) the Intendants. 
II. The Extent of Centralization. III. The Capital and 
the Nation. IV. The Decay of Governmental Efficiency. 

When Louis XVI. came to the throne of France, 
May 10, 1774, it was universally believed that the 
clumsy, conscientious, stupid young man and his beau- 
tiful wife were to introduce a period of national pros- 
perity such as France had not known since the earlier 
days of Louis XIV. In part these hopes were realized, 
for the nation was more prosperous under Louis XVI. 
than under Louis XV., or, indeed, than it had been 
during the last third of the long reign of Louis XIV. 
That they were not more fully realized, and that 
within fifteen years radical reform of every sort was 



2 The French Revolution 

demanded for the very existence of France, was due 
to the structure of French society and the organization 
of the French state; perhaps as much as anything, to 
the irresponsible monarchy which the young king 
inherited. [: /,ir.A. v.( 



t, 



To understand the French tnonarchy, one needs to 
begin one's study at the time that Louis XI. broke 
the military power of the nobles by his defeat of 
Charles the Bold, From that time the royal power 
grew rapidly. The Reformation, it is true, increased 
the political influence of the nobles, and for a time it 
looked as if there might be two states in France, one 
Protestant and the other Catholic. But Henry IV., 
and after him Richelieu and Mazarin, annihilated the 
power of the nobility, and built upon its ruins an abso- 
lute monarchy. Although France remained broken 
up into great feudal estates, their lords had grown so 
subservient as to have become what Carlyle con- 
temptuously calls them, "gilt pasteboard caryatids of 
the throne." By the seventeenth century France had 
become the one strongly centralized — it would almost 
be possible to say, the one modern — state in Europe. 
It was, in fact, the political marvel of the day. It 
alone of all the European powers had emerged more 
resplendent from the awful century and a half succeed- 
ing the Protestant movement in Germany. It was 
not only leader in thought, -in art, in manners; it was 
practically dictator in European politics. The Peace 
"of Westphalia, which in 1648 brought to a close the 
Thirty Years' War, was- to all intents and purposes 
a French document, announcing that Louis XIV. 
proposed to control the policy of every continental 



The Absolute Monarchy 3 

state. It is true such pretensions could not and did 
not long endure, and after the victories of William of 
Orange, the Duke of Marlborough, and Prince Eugene, 
and even after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes 
(1685), the Grand Monarch's influence had waned in 
international affairs. But so thoroughly had the work 
of Richelieu and Mazarin been done that the mon- 
archy itself was no loser by national misfortune. It 
even grew the more absolute, and France the more 
unified. And this in the very century in which Ger- 
many had barely missed committing suicide in the 
Thirty Years' War, and England had been rent in 
twain by Roundhead and Cavalier! The records of 
the time show clearly enough that the French mon- 
archy was the envy of European kings. And well it 
might have been in the eyes of a ruler like Charles 
I. of England. "ZV/^/, c' est mot — The state? 'Tis 
I!" — is the definition legend makes Louis XIV.' give 
of France, and there is no more symbolical picture 
than that of the young "Sun King" as with the equiv- 
alent of these words on his lips he walked into the 
meeting of the Parlement of Paris, and, with riding- 
boots on his feet and riding-whip in his hand, addressed 
the kneeling commoners. The regency of Orleans 
and the reign of Louis XV., though fatal to the morals 
of the court, none the less increased the absolutism of 
the king. As all power belonged to the monarch, so 
all property. Montesquieu saw in monarchy a despot- 
ism limited only by the sale of public offices. Black- 
stone, writing in the eighteenth century, classes France 

'Louis did not use these words, but made a short speech to the same 
effect. See Fournier, V Esprit dans VHistoire. 



4 The French Revolution 

with Turkey. The Sorbonne, the great theological 
court of the nation, said that all the property of his 
subjects belonged to the king, and that in taking 
it he took simply what was his own. The one 
remaining check upon his action, the High Court of 
Paris (Parle77ient de Paris) ^ was suppressed during the 
last years of Louis XV., and replaced by a most 
unpopular new court, named after the minister who 
brought it into existence, the Court {Parlejnent) of 
Maupeou. Of anything resembling a representative 
legislative body for the entire nation there was no 
trace for the one hundred and seventy-five years pre- 
ceding 1789.' The legislative, like the administra- 
tive power, was centered in the king. The legal 
phrase summed up the whole matter, "As the king 
^^ wills, so the law wills." 

As far as the machinery of this absolutism was con- 
cerned, the king might in person care for the affairs 
of state, or, if like Louis XV. he was disinclined to 
such exertion, the state was managed by ministers and 
councils, while the master of them all enjoyed him- 
self as he saw fit.^ These councils had legally the 
right neither of initiation nor of decision, but were 
advisory. The king, if he chose, could decide all 
matters without reference to them, or dismiss them 
outright if he preferred. Yet in actual practice this 
seldom happened, and practically all laws were made 

*But it should be noted that provincial assemblies continued to meet 
and preserve, however irapertectly, the thought ot representation. 

'There were five of these councils: of State, Dispatches, Finance, Com- 
merce, and, less important, the Privy Council. Each of the first four had 
never more than nine members, while the Privy Council numbered 100-150. 
The king was supposedly a member of them all, but usually attended only 
the first three named. 



The Absolute Monarchy J 

by them, although no law was supposed to be finally 
binding until it had been registered by the Parlement 
of Paris — that is, had been formally approved and 
entered on the records of the state. 

The administrative division of France was cum- 
bersome. There were, in fact, three general strata of 
administrative units. There was first, the ecclesiastic, 
which concerned the Roman Church alone. Second, 
there were the provinces. These were the remains 
of originally independent kingdoms or duchies which 
had been gradually united into the nation, and by the 
time of Louis XVI. had become merely military dis- 
tricts under governors, whose office, except in actual re- 
volt, had become practically sinecures. The provinces 
numbered thirty-two (or thirty-three if Corsica be 
included), and were of two classes, those of the Pays 
d' Election and those of the Pays d' Etat. The differ- 
ence between these two classes of provinces was this: 
the provinces known as the Pays d' Etat had been 
more recently conquered or acquired than those of 
the Pays d' Election^ and had preserved the privilege 
of holding provincial assemblies. The assemblies 
were composed of members of the three estates, 
clergy, nobles, commons, and enjoyed the right of 
consenting to taxation, and in other ways preserved 
something of self-government.' ^\\^JPays d' Election^ 
on the other hand, comprised the central provinces 
of France, and possessed no trace of that self-govern- 
ment which, as their name indicates, had been theirs 

^There were seventeen such provinces in 1789, the most important of 
which were Brittany, Flanders, Burgundy, Artois, Languedoc, Provence, 
Dauphine. 



6 The French Revolution 

until 1614. It was these provinces that especially 
felt the effects of maladministration. 

A third division of France may be said to have 
dated from the time of Richelieu, and was wholly for 
purposes of civil administration, especially for the 
purpose of taxation. It consisted of thirty-five^ 
generalites or intendances, at the head of each of 
which was an intendant. They coincided approx- 
imately with the provinces, and were subdivided into 
subordinate districts bearing a variety of names.^ 

It was this fiscal division of France that furnished 
the points of contact between the monarch and his 
people. The intendant was a member of the Privy 
Council, and was thus, like the Council itself, an 
extension of the royal will. As John Law said, these 
intendants constituted the ''thirty tyrants" of France. 
Thanks to the power delegated them by the Council, 
they were supreme in their districts, levying taxes, 
making laws, and in case appeal was taken from any 
of their decisions, actually judging these appeals. 
Was rejoicing in order? The intendant ordered bon- 
fires; mourning? crepe. Did a town guard fail to 
attend the Te Deum? They were forthwith fined 
twenty francs a man. If the peasant brought an ox 
to market, the inspector of cattle presented himself; 
the inspector of calves looked after the calves; the 
inspector of swine took care of the pigs, and if it 
happened to be a sow with young, he was joined by 

*Thirty-one according to the report of Necker in 1784, but for various 
reasons he omits four. 

*In the Pays (V Election these were generally known as elections or 
gouvernements ; in the Pays d^Eiat, as dioceses, bailliages, elections^ etc. 
On this entire matter, see Boiteau, Etat de la France en 178Q, chs. 3, 4. 



The Absolute Monarchy 7 

the inspector of sucking pigs.' The intendants them- 
selves mostly remained in Paris or Versailles, and the 
actual oversight of their districts was in the hands of 
his sub-delegates. These latter officials are described 
in the great protest presented by the Cour des Aides 
to Louis XVI. in 1775/ as men without rank and 
without legal authority, against whose petty tyranny 
the inhabitants of a village dared not defend them- 
selves. It is indeed easy to see how an absentee 
official, even if he had the best intentions, might lend 
himself unwittingly to all the abuses attending too 
great reliance upon a practically independent subor- 
dinate. Yet, on the other hand, the possibility 
for reform that lay in the hands of a conscientious 
resident intendant is to be seen in the enormous 
improvements accomplished by Turgot during the 
twelve years of his administration of Limoges. 

So complete was this centralization of power and 
administration that the government at Versailles, 
through the councils and intendants, cared for mat- 
ters that, according to modern political ideas, might 
much better have been left to local magistrates and 
boards. Indeed, nothing within the entire range of 
life was too great or too small to be overlooked by 
the ubiquitous representative of royalty. We should 
expect that the taxes would be levied by the Royal 
Council, and in the light of other facts it is not supris- 
ing to discover that there was no national as distinct 
from the king's personal treasury.^ But even a mod- 



Von Hoist, French Revolution^ 1, 14. 

'This highly important document for 

published, with a translation, in 1 

versity ot Pennsylvania, Dept. of His 

^The proposal in 1788 to make such a distinction was revolutionary. 



'This highly important document for the study of the Old Regime has 
been published, with a translation, in Translations and Reprints. V, 2. 
(University ot Pennsylvania, Dept. of Hist.) 



8 The French Revolution 

ern Frenchman, accustomed to a republic that is more 
bureaucratic than some monarchies, could not imagine 
his government assuming such paternal functions as 
the Bourbon king. By means of lettres de cachet^ or 
royal orders for arrest, obtained easily by the nobil- 
ity, and which sometimes were even signed when 
blank, he could imprison any person without trial. 
By them he even could interfere in family life, helping 
a despairing father discipline his unmanageable son. 
In agriculture, the Royal Council advised what crops 
should be planted, seasoning the energetic enforce- 
ment of their advice with much good counsel. In 
towns and parishes the central government was 
supreme. "There was no city, town, borough, vil- 
lage, or hamlet in the kingdom; there was neither 
hospital, church fabric, or religious house which could 
have an independent will in the management of its 
private affairs, or which could administer its own 
property after its own plans." ^ 

Wits saw no limit to this absolutism. When in 1732 
the government found it advisable to close up the St. 
Medard Cemetery in Paris because of the disorders 
arising from the miracles alleged to have been 
wrought at a Jansenist's grave, the following notice 
was found one morning on the closed gates: '*By 
order of the king. God is hereby forbidden to work 
miracles in this place." Just how the ignorant masses 
thought of this power we can well imagine. It would 
be impossible to convince them that this all-powerful 
ruler was not answerable for their misfortunes and 
miseries. 

*De Tocqueville, The Old RSginie, 64. 



The Absolute Monarchy 9 

The centralization of France in Paris was at once 
the explanation and the result of this condition of 
affairs.* In the eighteenth century Paris was rapidly 
becoming France. The old nobility, who formerly 
had lived scattered throughout the provinces, after 
one desperate attempt to regain the power Richelieu 
had wrested from them, had flocked to the royal court 
at Versailles, there to make their fortunes. But not 
only the nobility sought the capital; trade more and 
more turned thither. In the sixteenth century, for 
instance, the provinces had many important book 
publishers; in the eighteenth century they had prac- 
tically none; all were in Paris. Arthur Young, 
a thoroughly intelligent Englishman, traveling through 
some of the smaller cities at the outbreak of the 
Revolution, asked some of the leading men what they 
would do. "Oh,*' said they, "we don't know; we are 
only small provincial towns; we will wait till we see 
what Paris will do." It is true that the Revolution 
was an affair of the provincials quite as much as of the 
Parisians — perhaps in some ways even more so, for 
few of its leaders were from the capital; but without 
this centralization of authority and national life the 
problem of reform would have been far easier, and 
one is inclined to believe, the desperation of theorists 
like Robespierre and the brutality of men like Hebert 
would have been short-lived, if indeed possible. As 
it was, although the Revolution was quite as much the 

'Such a statement is intended to be only general. The political relation 
of Paris to France was really threefold: (i) ft was the capital; (2) it was one 
of the "royal cities" {botines villes)\ (3) it was a self-governing municipality. 
It was characteristic of the political condition of France that Paris had 
institutions appropriate to each of these characters. See Monin, L'Etat de 
Paris en ijSq, 29. 



lO The French Revolution 

work of the provinces as of the capital, the control of 
Paris proved to be the control of the state. 

But nothwithstanding — or better, perhaps, because 
of this elaborate organization — the government of 
France by the middle of the eighteenth century had 
become thoroughly inefficient. The feudal survivals 
in the provinces, the utter injustice of allowing the 
Pays d' Etat elements of self-government not enjoyed 
by the Pays d' Election^ the impossibility of administer- 
ing municipal affairs equitably or effectively from Ver- 
sailles, all combined to cripple the government. The 
weakness of the administration was increased by the 
neglect paid by Louis XV. to affairs of state. "The 
old machine will last through my days," he said, and 
went about his pleasures. Evidences of the inability 
of the monarchy to govern are numerous throughout 
the quarter-century preceding the Revolution. It is 
not merely that the state possessed a debt of hundreds 
of millions, that taxes were spent long before they 
were collected, that a deficit grew annually, that 
legislation was imbecile in its treatment of the most 
important economic matters. The country was really 
drifting to ruin. Cynical old Louis XV. saw it — or if 
not he, the Pompadour — and all too truly prophesied 
that after him would be the deluge. Chesterfield and 
Rousseau saw it. Indeed, the evidence was only too 
abundant. There being no popular representation, 
there were no popular leaders. The very "ward- 
heeler," with his "gang," is to-day, by some strange 
paradox of American politics, a guarantee that gov- 
ernment by the people shall not perish from the earth; 
but even he was lacking in monarchical France. Gov- 
ernment could not maintain order. The artisans had 



The Absolute Monarchy li 

grown so accustomed to thinking of the state as 
a mere taxing organization that they were suspicious 
even of the call for representative assemblies in 1787. 
Smugglers were innumerable, despite fearful penalties; 
and under desperate leaders like Mandrin in 1754, or 
Hulin in 1782, sometimes waged miniature civil war. 
"Brigands" in bands ranged over the country, intim- 
idating, robbing, even murdering, well-to-do peasants. 
Police protection was insufficient. In 1764 the gov- 
ernment made a desperate effort to check the evil, and 
fifty thousand vagabonds are said to have been 
arrested in one year; but the evil persisted. An ordi- 
nance of 1778 provided that the police should arrest, 
not only beggars and vagabonds whom they encoun- 
tered, but also those denounced as such or as sus- 
pected persons. This law reads as if it were intended 
to be the model of that against "suspects" passed 
by the Terrorists; but it did not accomplish its end. 
The "brigands" increased, and became an ever- 
increasing source of terror. 

In one word, the government of France was^senile.- 
From without, it could only coerce; and brilliant as 
was the court at Versailles, long before the Revolu- 
tion the monarchy had lost its ability to fulfill either 
old or new functions. For Fr ance, a magnificent 
^..^ation of more than twentyriive millions, had out- 
grown absolutism, and was growing spiritually ambi- 
tious, stronger, and restless. The problem grew 
more fatally simple with every year, until at last it 
might be said to have become this: Would the govern- 
ment recognize this new France, and if so, had the 
monarchy sufficient vitality to endure the rejuvena- 
tion of reform? 



CHAPTER II 

THE PRIVILEGED AND THE UNPRIVILEGED 

I. The Classes of the Privileged. II. Taxation: i. Exemptions; 
2. The Case of the Peasants; 3. The Indirect Taxes. 
III. Sinecures and Pensions for the Nobles. IV. Feudal 
Privileges: i. Feudal Dues; 2. Hunting; 3. Absentee Lords; 
4. The Increase of the Nobility. V. The Third Estate: 
I. Classes; 2. The Bourgeoisie as Compared with the 
Peasants; 3. Rise of Bourgeoisie in importance; 4. Hatred 
of Bourgeoisie on the Part of the Peasants and Artisans. 
VI. The Army: i. The Militia; 2. The Regular Army: 
{a) The Common Soldier, {b) The Officers, {c) The Army 
as a Type of the Nation. 

The Old Regime was essentially characterized by- 
civil and social inequality. In this it was the outcome 
of feudalism. The centralization of all political power 
in the hands of the king had not been accompanied 
by the abolition of privileges with roots running back 
into the earliest years of the nation's life. The great 
houses of the Second Estate, or nobility, perpetuated 
rights that recalled the times when their founders had 
been absolute masters of their villeins' life and limb; 
while the new houses, like all upstarts, saw in their 
lack of antiquity a reason for insisting the more arro- 
gantly upon privilege and exemption. As one looks 
back across the Revolution upon these social inequal- 
ities and hoary abuses, it is easy to see that they, and 
not monarchy, were the first objects of popular hatred, 
and to appreciate the fact often to be emphasized 
that the Revolution was fundamentally social rather 



The Privileged and the Unprivileged 13 

than political. It was not primarily a revolt against 
"absolutism, for to this day the French have had no 
government that in some way has not perpetuated 
Bourbon centralization. It was an uprising against 
privilege. 

Speaking for the moment very loosely, under the 
Old Regime Frenchmen were divided into two classes, 
those with privileges and those without privileges. 
To the former belonged the First Estate, or the clergy, 
the Second Estate, or the nobility, and the wealthy 
commoners. To the class of the unprivileged belonged 
all the rest of France. 

Postponing for the present the consideration of the 
clergy, we must consider the nobility. By the end of 
Louis XV. 's reign, nearly every man who was not 
actually an artisan, a farmer, a shopkeeper, or a small 
lawyer was a noble. They numbered perhaps one 
hundred thousand persons, and owned a fifth of the 
soil. The number of those who actually owned 
estates, however, was much smaller, but in so far as 
this fact did not make exceptions necessary, they all 
enjoyed essentially the same privileges. It has been 
estimated that there were thirty-five thousand castles 
or chateaux in France owned by the nobility. The 
lower nobles, on the whole, contributed an element of 
strength to the nation. Living on their small 
estates, they felt the responsibilities of their position, 
and cared somewhat conscientiously for their peas- 
ants. Their sons were likely to be dissipated in early 
life, but when heads of families of their own, generally 
reformed. Their daughters were as well educated as 
conventionality permitted, and either married young 



14 The French Revolution 

or went into convents. One other feature of the life 
of these small nobles was of great influence upon the 
national life. As estates were divided among the 
children, the tendency toward a landless aristocracy 
was very strong. The result of this was twofold: 
On the one hand, many of these poor nobles grew all 
the more strenuous supporters of the privileges of 
their caste, while on the other hand, some of them, 
like Mirabeau, cast in their lot with the commoners, 
and were among the most implacable enemies of the 
privileges to which their fathers had clung. As 
a class, however, the noblesse merited the words of 
Chateaubriand: "Aristocracy has three stages: first, 
the age of force, from which it degenerates into the 
age of privilege, and is finally extinguished in the age 
of vanity." 

The chief privilege enjoyed alike by the nobility, 
the clergy, and the wealthier commoners was that of 
exemption from taxation. It is true that the clergy, 
perhaps in return for some legislation hostile to Prot- 
estantism, perhaps under stress of war, perhaps from 
a sense of duty, did occasionally vote a gift to the 
state, but this was in the place of, not in addition to, 
taxes. Even thus it steadily lessened. Originally 
but $600,000 a year, in 1788 it shrank to $360,000, 
and in 1789 was refused altogether.* Had the church 
really paid in anything like a proportion to its wealth, 
the annual levy would have been vastly greater. The 

'In this and other estimates the livre is reckoned as a franc. As a 
matter of fact, from 1774 to 1789 the livre possessed value as silver of fr. 98 
cent. But its purchasing power was considerably greater. In 1830 the livre 
of 1789 had the purchasing power of 1 fr. 40 cent, and to-day it is considerably 
greater. If all sums are multiplied by three, the probability is that their 
present purchasing power will be approximately discovered. Cf. Bolteau, 
U Etat de la France en 178Q, 417. 



The Privileged and the Unprivileged 15 

church raised $36,600,000 itself as tithes, and its 
taxable property should certainly have yielded the 
state an equal sum.' Even when the church made its 
gifts, however, it received a grant from the royal 
treasury larger than the gift it had made! In 1787 it 
received $300,000 more than it gave. In one province 
$360,000 were spent in the public service, but the two 
upper classes contributed nothing to it. In ten other 
provinces $2,000,000 was paid by the lower classes as 
an income tax; the two upper orders paid about 
$400,000. The princes of the blood paid $36,000, 
when they should have paid $500,000. In fact, it 
came to be held that to pay taxes was a disgrace — an 
evidence of plebeian origin, and corruption of the 
intendants and their officials was open. Even when 
the nobility paid taxes, they were clamorous for pen- 
sions from the court, and seldom were they absolutely 
refused. 

Over against this scandalous exemption place the 
condition of the peasant. The direct taxes — chief of 
which were the land tax (tatlle), poll tax (capitatio7i)^ 
and, most hated of all, the corvee^ or forced labor on 
public works — amounted to fifty-three per cent of the 
net produce of his farm; and this was in addition to 
the tithes paid the church and the feudal dues paid 
his seigneur, each of which amounted to fourteen per 
cent more. Altogether the peasant paid thus eighty- 
one per cent of his supposed income in some form of 
taxes. So Taine, at least, calculates.^ And even if, 
as it may very probably be, this is an overstatement, 

•Boiteau, Etat de la France en tjSg, 214, says the church paid to the 
state trom 1706 to 1789 295,000,000 livres, when it should have paid 2,376,000,000. 
* Ancient Reeime. 412. 



1 6 The French Revolution 

when made to apply to France as a whole rather than to 
exceptionally unfortunate provinces, there can be little 
doubt that the taxes were a serious hindrance to agri- 
cultural France. At the best, they put a premium 
upon letting one's visible property go to ruin lest it 
attract the attention of the tax-collector. Peasants 
actually requested their lord not to repair their cot- 
tages, on the ground that to replace thatch with tiles 
would lead the sub-delegate to increase their tax. 

Yet the amount of tax collected from France was 
not so great that, had it been equitably levied, it 
should have produced the least misery. Here the 
utter inefficiency of the state is apparent. The taxes 
were levied by the Council through the intendant, 
who "could exempt, change, add, or diminish at 
pleasure. It must be obvious that the friends, 
acquaintances, and dependents of the intendant, and 
of all his sub-delegiies and the friends of these friends 
to a long chain of dependencies, might be favored in 
taxation at the expense of their miserable neigh- 
bors." ^ The very method of collecting taxes increased 
the oppression. Each parish, much against its will, 
had to collect its own share, and its collectors 
were held personally responsible for the taxes set 
them to collect! "The service," said Turgot, "is 
the despair and almost always the ruin of those 
obliged to perform it." 

The indirect taxes were generally farmed out to 
'speculators^ — the fenniers generaux — who made them 
a source of private profit. This in itself would be 
fatal to good adminstration, but such taxes were col- 

*Arthur Young, Travels in France (Bohn ed.), 3M. 



The Privileged and the Unprivileged 17 

lected only with the aid of atrocious legislation. 
There was the gabelle^ or salt tax, for instance, by far 
the most burdensome. Every head of a family was 
compelled to purchase annually, and at a price set by 
the government, seven pounds of salt for every person 
of his family above seven years of age. Whether he 
needed it or not made no difference. If he neglected 
to purchase the salt, he was fined. Two sisters once 
needed salt on Tuesday. The government depot did 
not open until Saturday. They boiled down some 
brine — and paid a fine of forty-eight francs, and were 
fortunate to get off with that! If a man had any salt 
left over at the end of a year, and so refused to pur- 
chase, he was fined as well. If he smuggled salt or 
bought it where he could buy it at a lower price, he 
was punished terribly. A smuggler, unarmed, with 
horses and carts, was fined three hundred francs, or 
sent three years to the galleys. His second offense 
brought him, in one part of France, a fine of four 
hundred francs or nine years in the galleys; in another 
part, the second offense sent him to the galleys for 
life. Children and women who smuggled salt were 
fined for the first offense one hundred francs; for the 
second offense, three hundred francs; for the third 
offense, they were flogged and banished the kingdom 
for life.^ And these laws were enforced. Calonne, 
one of the last ministers of Louis XVI., declared 
that the salt tax was the cause every year of "four 
thousand attachments on houses, thirty-four hundred 
imprisonments, five hundred condemnations to the 
whipping-post, banishment, or galleys." 

'See full details in Arthur Young, Travels in France (Bohn ed.), 315, 316. 



1 8 The French Revolution 

In addition there were the octroi^ or tax on food, 
brought into any town, and the taxes on wine and cider, 
as well as on imports and exports, both at the frontiers 
and at the boundaries of different provinces. When 
one further recalls that salt, grain, and other neces- 
saries of life were in the hands of great monopolies 
formed under royal charters, and that in the notori- 
ous Facte de Famine, a grain *' corner" of the most 
conscienceless sort, Louis XV. was himself supposed to 
have been interested, it is no wonder that the peasants 
should have come to regard tax-collectors, feudal lords, 
clergy, and corporations as their natural enemies. 

But while thus the miserably poor peasantry paid 
and the wealthy classes were largely free from taxes, 
the inequality was intensified by the fact that sinecures 
with large salaries were enjoyed by those having 
influence at court. Madame Lamballe, for instance, 
was given $30,000 a year for acting as superintendent 
of the queen's household. Persons were appointed to 
offices the very duties of which had been forgotten. 
One young man was given a salary of $3,600 for an 
office whose sole duty consisted in his signing his 
name twice a year. In 1780, after Louis XVI. had 
inaugurated retrenchment, the three old maid aunts 
of the king were allowed $120,000 for food! In addi- 
tion the king was constantly paying the debts of 
n6bles. The tutors of the king's children received 
$23,000 yearly, and the head chambermaid of the 
queen made $10,000 off the annual sale of partly 
burned candles. Altogether, from 1774 to 1789, 
$16,000,000 had been given to members of the royal 
family. 



The Privileged and the Unprivileged 19 

But it was the privileges that sprang from feudal 
rights that were the most obnoxious. It is true that 
peasant proprietors were increasing in number, a third 
of France, according to Arthur Young, belonging to 
them in 1788.' Even if this estimate be too high, 
the fact remains that not all the land was in feudal 
tenure. Yet these peasant farms were small at the 
> best, and became even smaller through division 
among the children of a proprietor at his death. ^ It 
was almost inevitable that the peasant should be 
forced into the landless class. But while thus the 
poorer members of the nobility and the peasantry 
alike were detached from their land, one relationship 
persisted. Whether or not he had sold his chateau or 
fields, the noble had still feudal rights within the lim- 
its of what was or had been his ancestral fief. In 
fact, as the Due d'Aiguillon said on the night of 
August 4, 1789, in many cases these feudal rights were 
the only property a noble possessed. He took his 
toll from the wine, the bridge, the mill, the fair, the 
village scales, the oven, the wine-press. For the 
noble who still owned the estate there were, in addi- 
tion, still other sources of income. Every transfer 
of the leasehold paid some fee to the lord. What was 
worse, a part of the rental for some farms was the 
money equivalent for certain absurd and wicked 

^Lavoisier estimated that in 1789 there were 450,000 small proprietors 
living on their estates. Boiteau, Etat de la France, jjSq, 6. Von Sybel. 
French Revolution, 1, 3, calls attention to the fact that to-day the land of 
France is divided approximately equally between three classes of proprietors, 
the very rich, the very poor, and the middle class. These last are the result 
ot the Revolution. 

'.'\rthur Young speaksof estates containing ten roods with a single tree, 
and Turgot said the division was carried so far that a property just sufficient 
for one family was divided among six. Cf. De Tocqueville, VAncien 
Rigime, 60. 



20 The French Revolution 

duties owed by peasants of feudal times to their lord. 
In some regions of France, for instance, a part of the 
duties of the peasant farmer had been to beat the 
marshes to keep the frogs quiet while the lady in 
the chateau was ill, and this duty had been commuted 
into a fixed sum of money. Other money payments 
at the marriage of peasant girls were compensation for 
ancient privileges far more atrocious. Altogether the 
peasants paid fourteen per cent of their income to 
their seigneurs. 

Perhaps as senseless and exasperating as any priv- 
ilege of the nobility was the exclusive right of hunting 
over the farms of the estate. For forty-five miles about 
Paris, for instance, were the royal capitaineries^ or game 
preserves, in which all farms were to be kept free of 
fences or other hindrances to the king's hunting.^ 
The same was true on a smaller scale about each 
feudal chateau. The peasant could not hoe his corn 
or pull his weeds before a certain date lest the young 
rabbits might be disturbed. At any moment he 
had to be ready to see a troop of gay cavaliers 
and ladies with horses and dogs sweep over his grain 
in pursuit of some half-tame deer. And this was not 
all. The deer and the pigeons and all the other 
game could not be killed by the farmer, even if they 
were destroying his crops. He could not even build 
fences to keep them out! He must fasten logs to his 
dog's collar to keep him from running after game, 
and he might not keep a gun to kill the wolves.^ Howl 

^Aug. 30, 1781, Louis XVI. killed 460 pieces. In fourteen years he killed 
more than 190,000 pieces of game of all sorts. 

^Cahieroi the Third Estate of Chaumont in Champagne. 



The Privileged and the Unprivileged 21 

universally hateful and oppressive were these rights of 
hunting may be seen 'from the fact that they are men- 
tioned in nearly every bill of complaint sent to the 
States General in 1789. 

It should be remembered that all these privileges 
enjoyed by the nobles were in return for practically 
no service on their part. In the old feudal days the 
lords had felt some sense of obligation toward their 
villeins, but while destroying the political power of 
the feudal nobles, the kings of France had left them all 
their feudal dues. It was a fatal mistake. Much 
better had it been for the peasantry if their nobles 
had, like the German nobles, kept some of their old 
rights of government. For then they would have 
kept nearer the peasantry ; they would have lived more 
at home; they would have fulfilled that duty which 
was the chief justification of the feudal system, the 
protection of the weak by the strong. As it was, the 
French noble lived on his estate only when forced so 
to do in the interest of economy. The evil effects 
of such absenteeism were recognized by Frenchmen, 
and the nobility of Blois, in their cahier sent the 
States General, justified their surrender of privileges 
as tending to the benefit of the small nobility. They 
declare their belief "that a proprietor who fulfills the 
obligation of his heritage, spreads about him pros- 
perity and happiness; that the effort he makes to 
increase his revenues increases at the same time the 
mass of the agricultural products of the realm; that 
the country districts are covered with chateaux and 
manors, formerly inhabited by the French nobility, 
but now abandoned; that a great public interest 



22 The French Revolution 

would be subserved by inducing proprietors to seek 
again, so far as possible, their 'interests in the coun- 
try. " But this was precisely what the nobility as 
a class did not desire. Arthur Young, writing from 
Nantes, describes the country as "deserted; or if 
a gentleman is in it, you find him in some wretched 
hole, to save that money which is lavished with pro- 
fusion in the luxuries of the capital." And so to 
Paris and Versailles the noble went; there, as far as 
his means or his credit permitted, to live like every 
other absentee landlord, intrusting the management of 
his estate to an agent who was held less strictly to 
the care of the tenants than to supplying funds for 
his master's life at the capital. It was because the 
personal bond between lord and peasant was thus 
broken, as well as because of the sale of estates 
to an upstart nobility, that in the face of the great 
philosophical movement making for human equality 
there should have sprung up between 1780 and 1789 
a distinct feudal reaction. Throughout France the 
seigneurs were verifying their titles and their leases, 
and were enforcing more vigorously than ever their 
feudal claims.^ This fact throws light upon the fierce- 
ness with which such rights were attacked by the 
peasants in 1789, as well as the stubbornness of the 
reactionary members of the Second Estate during 
the period of attempted reform. 

It would be a mistake to think of the order of the 
nobility as closed. It was being constantly recruited 
from the wealthy commoners. Titles were sold by 
hundreds and thousands; nor was the spirit of priv- 

^Cherest, La Chute de V Ancien Rigime, I, 49. 



The Privileged and the Unprivileged 23 

ileges any more restricted. Even if a wealthy com- 
moner did not purchase a title, his tastes and inter- 
ests lay rather with the privileged classes than with 
the unprivileged. So it came about that there were 
many points of similarity between the first two and 
the wealthier part of the Third Estate. 

To explain this Third Estate, it is not enough to 
compare it roughly with the Anglo-Saxon middle 
class. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries there 
grew up alongside of the feudal nobles a class of well- 
to-do townspeople, who as individuals owed no feudal 
dues, and whom trade sometimes made masters even 
of the nobles themselves. As time went by, this class 
of untitled men gradually acquired some political 
importance. The king, for good and sufficient rea- 
sons, recognized its right to assent to being taxed, 
and its representatives formed a third of the great 
national assembly known as the States General, the 
clergy and the nobility furnishing the two other thirds. 
But by the eighteenth century the Third Estate, or 
commons, itself had begun to divide into classes.' 
They were the bourgeoisie^ the peasants, and the 
artisans. The interests of these various classes were 
by no means identical. The bourgeoisie^ composed 
of traders, had grown well to do, had their properties, 
large and small, and, unfortunately, had at the same 
time become vulgar and selfish. They had even less 
sympathy with the suffering peasants and artisans 
than had the nobles. The peasants were the farmers 
of the nation. As has already appeared, they some- 

*Reliable figures place the population of France in 1789 between twenty- 
six and twenty-seven millions. Of these, approximately, twenty millions 
lived in the country. Boiteau, Etat de la France en i7&), 11, 12. 



24 The French Revolution 

times owned their little farms (though generally sub- 
ject to some outgrown feudal dues), but more often 
tilled a piece of ground under feudal tenure, and con- 
trived as best they could to save enough for the ever- 
present tax-collector and to keep body and soul 
together. The artisans lived in cities, and consti- 
tuted a class whose rights were even less clearly seen 
than they are to-day. 

Clearly enough, therefore, it would not be correct 
to think of this untitled class as homogeneous or ani- 
mated by the same spirit. Such unity was impos- 
sible in anything except the most general principles. 
Even among townspeople, the guild system was the 
source of endless jealousies. Each trade thus organ- 
ized had definite privileges upon which it insisted. 
We read of bitter warfare between wigmakers and 
bakers over social precedence! How much greater 
must have been the lack of sympathy between the 
peasant and the banker. Arthur Young, traveling 
in southern France, overtook a woman with bent form 
and furrowed face. He thought her sixty or seventy 
years old, but she stoutly maintained she was but 
twenty-eight. She was the wife of a small peasant 
proprietor. They owned a patch of ground, a cow, 
a poor little horse, and seven children. Yet propri- 
etors though they were, they owed one seigneur 
a yearly due of forty-two pounds of flour and three 
chickens; to another one hundred and twenty-six 
pounds of oats, one chicken, and one sou. Compare 
with the misery of this poor woman the condition of 
a successful member of the bourgeoisie of some pro- 
vincial town, who, after being a manufacturer or 



The Privileged and the Unprivileged 25 

a merchant, retired on his fortune, with very likely a 
patent of hereditary nobility; his wife, who had prob- 
ably assisted in his rise by the arts of a saleswoman 
and by her talent for business, being called Madame, 
like a duchess. 

It is, indeed, not surprising to discover that there 
was no equality in privilege between the bourgeoisie 
and the other elements of the Third Estate. The 
relations of the two were those of superiors and 
inferiors. The bourgeoisie clearly constituted an 
untitled aristocracy, quite as conscious of its social 
position as was the real nobility. Nothing shows this 
plainer than the difference in the two elements of 
municipal government, the commune and the munici- 
pality. Tht co??imu7ie — never to be confused with any- 
thing like economic communism — was the armed 
association of all the Third Estate in a town or village ; 
the municipality was the governing body of the town, 
and was composed exclusively of the bourgeoisie. By 
such an arrangement danger was shared by all com- 
moners alike, but the perquisites and honors of office 
went to the bourgeoisie alone. In many if not all parts 
of France the bourgeoisie was free from one or more 
forms of taxation. The very right of labor was safe 
only in their hands, and they, quite as much as the 
aristocracy of the court, were ready to oppress the 
masses, while the mayors of the towns were notori- 
ously venal, buying office and being bought them- 
selves apparently with small sense of official honesty. 
It is to this extension of class inequality and con- 
sequent class hatred that one must look for the origin 
of that suspicion of the bourgeoisie displayed by the 



26 The French Revolution 

masses during certain periods of the Revolution. 
That conservative spirit which, in the Constitution of 
1 791, set a property qualification for suffrage, was to 
be followed by a fierce determination on the part of 
the Jacobin leaders to rid the Revolution of all bour- 
geois control. Their brief success but deepened the 
class hatred, and to this day the proletariat of 
France regards all property-holders, from the small 
shopkeeper to the millionaire, as hereditary enemies. 
But in 1789 the horrors of the Terror were 
unforeseen. The Third Estate, with all its inner 
jealousies, was at one in its appreciation of the injus- 
tice done it by the Old Regime. Quite as galling to 
the bourgeoisie as political neglect was the social inferi- 
ority to which it was relegated by fashionable society. 
Commerce was already working a transfer of actual 
influence in the state, and the new rulers of commer- 
cial France very naturally demanded social and polit- 
ical recognition. Although the wars of Louis XV. 
had cost France her Indian and North American 
possessions, thanks to the Third Estate French trade 
was steadily increasing. The exports of 1776 were 
309,000,000 francs, as over against 192,000,000 in 
1748. John Law, despite the disastrous collapse of 
the "Mississippi Bubble," had shown the possibilities 
of paper money and bank credit, and the bourgeoisie 
had been the chief beneficiaries. It was possible for 
a banker's clerk like Necker to become enormously 
wealthy. Many of the old feudal fiefs, so Bouille says 
in his Memoirs, were in the hands of the bourgeois ot 
the cities. It was natural, therefore, for the class to 
appreciate its own importance. Filling nearly every 



The Privileged and the Unprivileged 27 

important administrative office in the nation, outside 
the sinecures and the very highest positions at court, 
the lawyers, banlcers, physicians, however indifferent 
they might be to the state of the peasantry, chafed 
under the pretensions and privileges of the nobility. 
"What is the Third Estate?" asked Sieyes in his 
famous pamphlet. "Everything. What has it been 
until now? Nothing. What does it ask for? To 
become something!" 

In no part of the national life did the distinction 
between the privileged and unprivileged classes more 
strikingly appear than in the army. The military 
forces of France embraced the militia, and the regular 
army consisting of one hundred and one regiments 
of infantry and sixty-two regiments of cavalry. The 
militia was raised by conscription nominally, from all 
Frenchmen between eighteen and forty years of age, 
but those exempted from the service were very numer- 
ous, so that practically only provincials were enlisted, 
and of these only those peasants who were desperately 
poor. Desertion from the militia, or even absence 
without leave, was punished with a life sentence to the 
galleys; but not even this severity could always hold 
the conscripts to their term of six years. Yet these 
peasant troops were noted for their valor, and together 
with the municipal guards, were to form the bulk of 
those wonderful armies that the Revolution cast out 
upon Europe in the name of liberty. 

According to official estimates, in 1787 the "active 
army," on a peace footing, included 187,483 officers 
and men, with a total war footing, including militia, 
of 367,695. But these figures are certanly untrust- 



28 The French Revolution 

worthy, for when, in July, 1789, Marshal de Broglie 
became Minister of War, the "active army" amounted 
only to 163,684 officers and men.^ The regular army 
was not raised by conscription, but was composed of 
men who nominally had been enlisted; but even 
a superficial knowledge of European recruiting sys- 
tems of the eighteenth century, with their "force 
gangs" and their crimps, with their innumerable 
methods of stealing or deceiving men, arouse suspi- 
cions as to the voluntary character of the service. 
Yet among the various reforms attempted by Louis 
XVI. was that of this recruiting process, and it is 
likely that the private soldiers in the regular army 
were mostly men who had chosen the military profes- 
sion with reasonable freedom. Their term of service 
was four years, at the end of which they could reenlist 
for four or eight years more. 

Recruited thus from desperate or worthless men, 
the quality of the French regular troops was inferior 
to that of the militia; yet even thus, they were hardly 
the "brigands" their officers called them. Rocham- 
beau even boasts that the French troops in America 
could camp in an orchard and not steal an apple, but 
if this were really the case, it must have been due to 
unusual conditions. They were not generally noted 
for such self-restraint. The actual condition of the 
French soldier was one about which different opinions 
can easily be held. The fact that men entered the 
service by enlistment, and often, if not generally, 
made it the profession of their lives, argues in its favor. 
English observers speak with respect of them, espe- 

^Boiteau, Rtat de la France en 1789, 261. 



The Privileged and the Unprivileged 29 

cially of their uniformly good appearance — a uniform- 
ity reached sometimes by such expedients as fierce 
mustaches stuck on youthful upper lips, and uncom- 
fortably tight uniforms. But on the other side are 
facts which made military service a very hotbed of 
discontent, and explain the enthusiasm with which the 
rank and file of the army welcomed the Revolution. 

Under the new regulations introduced by St. Ger- 
main, Minister of War from 1775 to 1777, military 
discipline was modeled upon that of Frederick II. of 
Prussia. Officers and privates alike were displeased, 
and among the petitions contained in the cahiers of 
1789 are those like that of the Third Estate of Ver- 
sailles, to the effect that "barbarous punishments, 
taken from the codes of foreign nations and intro- 
duced into the new military regulations, be abolished 
and replaced with regulations more in conformity 
with the genius of the nation." Perhaps it was this 
"genius of the nation" that made flogging in the 
ranks a cause of the downfall of the reform ministry 
of Louis XVI. Yet at this time flogging was prac- 
ticed in the English army, where the men only laughed 
at it. The food and accommodation for the privates 
were inferior, but the hospital arrangements were not 
altogether bad. The common soldier's uniform was 
generally in good condition, but his comfort was not 
a matter of great concern. Even stockings were 
apparently wanting, as we learn from a rather unpleas- 
ant anecdote of the times. And to cap all, the 
private's pay was only six sous a day. 

From this condition there was little chance of escape 
through promotion. A private could almost never 



30 The French Revolution 

rise to the ranks of a commissioned officer. About 
ten years before the Revolution it was decreed that 
no one should hold even the rank of captain unless 
his family had been noble for four generations. Even 
among the nobility, promotion went by favor, and 
nobles without influence at court often resigned in 
disgust. Yet this was not due to the small number 
of offices, for in 1789 there was no less than one gen- 
eral for every one hundred and fifty-seven men.* But 
in the contrast between the private and his officer the 
injustice of the Old Regime is especially in evidence; 
for, as Taine says, in place of hardship there were 
authority, honors, money, leisure, good living, social 
enjoyments, and private theatricals for the officers. 
Of the $18,000,000^ paid the army, $9,200,000, or more 
than half, went to the officers. There is little wonder 
that the ranks should have been composed of "the scum 
of society" and "the sweepings of the jails," or that 
there should have been sixty thousand desertions in 
eight years; or that the common soldiers should have 
hated their officers; or that they should have been among 
the first to welcome a revolution. For hidden in this 
despised and abused soldiery was many a bright and 
ambitious man. From the ranks or the lower officers 
of tne army of the Old Regime came a Pichegru, 
an Hoche, an Oudinot, a Murat, a Bernadotte, a Soult, 
a Ney. To these men the Revolution, whether for 
weal or woe, brought a career. Without it they would 
have suffered and died members of the despised canaille} 

'Stephens, French Retolution, I, 371. 

'^This does not include the amount paid the officials by the military 
bureau. 

^'See an excellent chapter (7) in Lowell, Eveof the French devolution : and 
especially Babeau, Vie militaire; Boiteau, Etat de la France en 178Q, chs. 
10, II. 



CHAPTER III 

SOCIAL CONTRASTS AND" MORALITY 

I. The Court: i. General Character; 2. Etiquette; 3. Influence. 

II. The Peasantry: i. Poverty; 2. General Condition. 

III. Moral Degeneracy: i. In the Court; 2. In Upper 
Classes; 3. In Education of Children. IV. The Better 
Side of Fashionable Life: The Salons. 

Within a society thus broken into the two great 
classes of the privileged and the unprivileged, the cus- 
toms and habits of social life formed a series of striking 
contrasts. The king, of course, was at the head of the 
fashionable as well as of the political world. Versailles, 
a suburb of Paris with eighty thousand inhabitants, 
was the city of the court. There was the magnificent 
palace that Louis XIV., at the expense of thirty mil- 
lion dollars, had built in a swamp, and there the king 
held his court.' Few of the thousands of travelers 
who have visited that vast pile have escaped the 
temptation to repeople its wilderness of rooms with 
something more than the questionable pictures which 
now relate the glories of France. But for a modern 
it is all but impossible. The combination of vulgarity 
and display, of ceremony and indecency; the civiliza- 
tion which would permit the continuous holiday-life at 
the court and blinked at the total disregard of ele- 
mentary economic principles that made such a holiday 

^Twenty thousand men were employed two years in building the water- 
works alone. Arthur Young, in 1787. however, declared that the canal was 
"not in such good repair as a farmer's iiorse-pond." 

31 



32 The French Revolution 

permanent; the possibility of a government in which 
the welfare of millions would be sacrificed to the whim 
of a light woman or the ambition of an adventurer; the 
artificiality of a life whose first principle was flattery 
and whose summit was a sinecure and a pension; the 
injustice of a system that, even more than the work of 
the modern spoils system, made the lobby and the con- 
spiracy easy means by which to rifle a nation's income, 
while it put a reformer at the mercy of a court-clique 
or the king's confessor — all these, the inseparable 
elements of a picture of life at the court of Louis 
XV. and Louis XVL, are happily quite beyond the 
power of accurate representation. 

It must be remembered that France had the repu- 
tation of being the most advanced nation in the world, 
and its customs were the model of all fashionable 
society. But even this consideration hardly prepares 
one for the extravagances of French society. Thirty 
persons were required to serve the king his dinner; 
four, a glass of wine and water. There was the king's 
lever^ in which the highest nobles of the realm stood 
about in the decorous flattery of silence to watch the 
king's toilet, a prince of the blood handing him his 
shirt.' 

There was sufficient etiquette in the queen's toilet 
to keep her waiting unclothed until the proper person 
was given precedence in handing her her garments. 
And yet so paradoxical was the court life, that the 
palace was noted for its vile odors; and when Marie 
Antoinette's first child was born, her room was so 

'This morning: toilet of the king^ was more or less a purely conventional 
thing. Louis XVI. would often rise early in the morning, go about his affairs, 
and then go to bed again to be ready for his lever! 



Social Contrasts and Morality ^3 

crowded with spectators of all classes that it had to be 
partly cleared to prevent her fainting'.' 

As for the number of people in attendance upon 
royalty, even after the economies of the first years of 
Louis XVI., the military retinue of the king numbered 
9,050 persons, including all branches of the service 
except artillerists. His civil household numbered 
soniething like 4,000. Eighty persons were in attend- 
ance upon the Princess Elizabeth when she was 
a month old. Marie Antoinette's private stables in 
1780 had 75 vehicles and 330 horses. The king had 
1,857 horses, 217 vehicles, 1,458 men in liveries. In 
1786 there were 150 pages in the palace, 128 musi- 
cians, 75 almoners and other religious officials, 48 
doctors and assistants, ^S^ officers of the table, 103 
waiters, 198 persons for the personal domestic service 
of the king. These were all intended for the palace 
at Versailles, but Louis XVI. had twelve others 
besides the Louvre, the Tuileries, and Chambord. 
Each of these palaces had its own army of servants. 

This prodigality was by no means limited to the 
court. Especially in France, every noble of any 
importance must have his little Versailles, and waste 
his property and other people's property in maintain- 
ing his state, while all Europe must go bankrupt try- 
ing to live like the king of the French — who was him- 
self going bankrupt most rapidly of all! ^ 

'In 1787, Arthur Young visited Versailles, and was shown the apartments 
of the king. He says that "it was amusing to see the blackguard figures 
that were walking uncontrolled about the palace, and even in his bed- 
chamber; men whose rags betrayed them to be in the last stage of poverty.' 

'The memoirs of the time abound in illustrations of this extravagance. 
As picturesque as any is Thiebault's {Met?totrs, I, 41) account of the fashion- 
able crowd at Longchamps and the demi-mondaine carried off to prison in 
her carriage lined with mother-of-pearl and with solid silver hubs in the 
wheels, and drawn by horses with harnesses of silk and gold and shoes of 
silver. 



34 



The French Revolution 



Yet all this magnificence, with its vast unproduc- 
tive expenditure, was after all no evidence of wide- 
spread comfort. "What a miracle," wrote Arthur 
Young at Nantes, "that all this splendor and wealth 
of the cities of France should be so unconnected with 
the country. " The nobility, it will be remembered, 
were growing poorer, and in their places was rising 
a plutocratic bourgeoisie whose hand was against noble 
and proletarian alike. Over against the luxury of 
Versailles and the comparatively small class of wealthy 
persons must be placed the poverty, and even misery, 
of the peasantry and the masses in the cities. For 
thirty years before the Revolution the official cor- 
respondence from practically all portions of France 
reveals the pitiable condition of the lower classes, but 
just before its beginning bad harvests had made 
misery acute. In 1787 Arthur Young, from Calais 
southward, saw peasant women pulling weeds for their 
cows. Potatoes had just been introduced, but were 
looked upon with suspicion by the peasants.* A pro- 
vincial assembly of lower Normandy officially reported 
that the artisans of its province were barely able to 
keep off starvation, and that in five districts the 
inhabitants lived only on buckwheat. In other parts 
of the country the peasants ate only corn, a mixture 
of flour, common seeds, and a little wheat. In Nor- 
mandy oats were the chief diet of the poor, and else- 
where mixtures of various nuts, coarse grains, and 
milk. In Poitiers thousands of workingmen were 
eager to work at half-wages, while from all over the 

^In order to encourage potato-culture, Louis XVI. at one time wore a 
potato-blossom in his button-hole. 



Social Contrasts and Morality ^S 

most fertile regions of France the officials reported 
thousands of industrious peasant farmers reduced to 
beggary. So narrow was the margin of the peasant's 
capital that a hailstorm or an inundation would make 
an entire province dependent upon charity. Nor was 
the misery due to mere loss of crops. Great stretches 
of land — one half or one quarter, says Arthur Young — 
lay waste. Agriculture was still mediaeval in its 
methods. We have it on good authority that there 
were few or no iron plows in the entire country. As 
a result, while the English acre produced twenty-eight 
bushels, the French produced but eighteen.' Roads 
were bad, regular coaches almost unknown, transpor- 
tation of crops almost impossible, and even when pos- 
sible, checked by customs at the boundary of every 
province. The great majority of peasants possessed 
no capital, and especially in southern France were 
forced to become metayers, or farmers who paid rent 
in kind, the owner of the land furnishing all cattle 
and machinery. The father of Mirabeau declared 
that "agriculture as our peasants practice it is veri- 
table drudgery; they die by thousands in childhood, 
and in maturity they seek places everywhere but 
where they should be." 

The homes of the peasants were no better than 
their food and lot. Arthur Young, it is true, speaks 
occasionally of well-built cottages, but more often 
they were mere stables or barns, to which a chimney 
had been added, made of four poles and some mud. 
And as for the peasants themselves, Arthur Young 

Mt has been estimated that while in the matter of taxes the French 
farmer stood to the English as 3% to 2%, in the matter of produce his land 
was in the ratio only of 9 to 14. 



^6 The French Revolution 

finds men and women everywhere working barefooted, 
and declares the Souillac women to be "walking 
dunghills." The elder Mirabeau, who saw a company 
of peasants at a festival, describes them as "frightful 
looking men, or rather wild beasts, covered with coats 
of coarse wool, wearing wide leather belts pierced with 
copper nails, .... their faces haggard and covered 
with long matted hair, the upper portion pallid, and 
the lower distended, indicative of cruel delight and 
a sort of ferocious impatience." 

The condition of the artisans of cities was perhaps 
less rigorous than that of the peasants, but it was 
bound to result in misery. Wages were low, the cost 
of bread was high, and far more than in these days of 
compulsory education, the surroundings of the poor 
were practically fixed for life. In the place of educa- 
tion was endless talk. Philosophical dreams, which 
in some crude shape were soon shared by the lowest 
classes, added new zest to discontent, while the 
uncertainty and severity of their life were rapidly 
breeding among the poor an incomparable brutality. 
Yet we must here discriminate. "The French peasant 
was far freer socially than the serfs of Germany, Italy, 
and Spain; and in Prussia, where the burdens of 
a vigorous and aggressive monarchy were added to 
those of feudalism, the peasants had to bear heavier 
loads even than those of Central France. " ^ Travelers 
of the time, also, make it evident that the condition 
of the peasants varied greatly in different parts of the 
country, and in portions of France, especially in the 
north, they seem to have enjoyed some real pros- 

'Rose, Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era, 19. 



Social Contrasts and Morality 37 

perity. But as one might well have conjectured, 
wherever the masses had come under the influence of 
the new thought, this very prosperity bred a more 
mutinous discontent. At the best, if they were more 
comfortable, they were the more certain victims of the 
sub-delegate of the intendant and the local tax-col- 
lector. The contrast between privileged and unpriv- 
ileged -was made all the more galling as men began 
on the one hand to believe passionately in the equality 
of "the natural man" preached by the philosophers, 
and on the other to taste the pleasure of owning even 
the smallest patch of ground and a few pieces of 
money. 

It is to be expected that a national sense so blunted 
as to admit of such contrasts as these should also 
have retained little susceptibility to morality in other 
relations. It is true that pictures of national im- 
morality are likely to be overcolored; witness current 
descriptions of life under the Caesars and during the 
English Restoration. Fortunately, the vices and gen- 
eral reversion to animalism which characterize society 
which wealth has made parasitic are not to be found 
among the people as a whole. None the less, gladi- 
atorial games are most damning testimony against 
the moral ideal of the Roman Empire, no matter how 
far Petronius may stand corrected by the gravestones 
of forgotten thousands. In the same way, the low 
moral condition of France may be seen with some 
accuracy in a literature much of which would hardly 
be allowed to pass through our mails, but which was 
praised by a woman like Madame Roland. 

Most of all, however, may it be judged by the gen- 



38 The French Revolution 

eral habits of fashionable and unfashionable folk of 
the time. As one might expect, the saddest spectacle 
of demoralization is to be seen in the court circle. 
Before the accession of Louis XVI. the social life, and 
often the state policy, of Versailles had been under 
the control of the mistresses of the king, the most 
celebrated being Madame de Pompadour and Madame 
du Barry, the last of whom was to perish miserably on 
the guillotine. Indeed, the regency of the Duke of 
Orleans and the reign of Louis XV. have become 
synonymous for all that is shameless. But with Louis 
XVI. matters were much improved. Louis was a young 
man of blameless life so far as conventional morality 
is concerned, and endeavored to purify his court. The 
effort was successful to some extent, but was really 
hopeless. The court nobility were without serious- 
ness, and love affairs figured too largely in life to be 
abandoned. It is not necessary to plunge into the 
unclean stream of memoirs of the time, for it is alto- 
gether probable that half the stories they relate are 
nothing more than lies born of a prurient love of gos- 
sip. But the mere fact that about the queen, Marie 
Antoinette, there should so continually gather scan- 
dalous rumors, however little one may believe the 
worst of them,^ is in itself sufficient evidence of wide- 
spread laxity in morals. The very imprudences of 
the queen, her choice of friends, and especially of four 
men as nurses when ill ; the mere possibility of a scan- 
dalous affair like that of the Diamond Necklace, in 
which a cardinal of the church appeared to fancy it 
possible to win her favors by the present of jewels — all 

'Thiebault, Memoirs, I, 43. 



Social Contrasts and Morality 39 

these things throw a singularly unpleasant light upon 
the court. . 

A similar license in manners, to use no stronger 
term, ran through all society. Husband and wife too 
frequently lived in only formal union, and marital 
unfaithfulness among the fashionable classes was 
shockingly palliated, even expected. Gouverneur 
Morris tells of ladies receiving him at their toilet; 
others tell of being received while their hostesses were 
in their bath of water made untransparent with milk. 
There was hardly a philosopher who lived a chaste life, 
and many of them were notoriously licentious. The 
father of Mirabeau only followed a tolerably wide- 
spread fashion when he brought his mistress into the 
midst of his family. But perhaps the most significant 
story — and with it we leave this unpleasant matter — 
concerns Voltaire. He had lived for years as the 
recognized lover of a most learned Madame du 
Chatelet. At her death he and her husband opened 
a locket the dead woman had worn most sacredly. 
The two strangely suited mourners looked at the por- 
trait the locket contained — and silently closed its 
case. It was of neither of them, but of a third man! 

And yet French society at this time was probably 
the most polished the world has ever seen. Manners 
were almost a profession, for who could tell what 
honor might not hang upon a bit of repartee or a well- 
done bow? From the very cradle the children of the 
nobility and rich bourgeoisie were taught the ways of 
the great world. Family life itself grew into a mass 
of etiquette. Until the rise of Rousseau's influence, 
children were apparently turned over to servants 



40 The French Revolution 

and teachers. Talleyrand, for instance, did not see his 
parents for years, and when about ten years old called 
on his mother once a week, on her reception-day.^ 
Until 1783 little boys had their hair powdered, wore 
swords, and kissed little girls' hands with all the dig- 
nity of older dandies. A girl of six years wore corsets, 
a hoop petticoat, false hair, and — sometimes — rouge! 
Taine rather cuttingly says that the fulcrum of educa- 
tion was the dancing-master.^ 

It must not be forgotten, however, that within the 
salons of many a Paris merchant, learned men and 
brilliant women gathered to discuss all sorts of ques- 
tions in philosophy and economy and theology. 
Those who shared in this better social life of the Old 
Regime looked back to it as a golden age. And it was 
to some degree characteristic of other cities than 
Paris. These salons were the centers of that political 
influence so largely wielded by the women of the day, 
and were to become even more influential in the 
reform movements that led up to the summoning of 
the States General. But it would be impossible to say 
that they indicated or generated any moral virility 
or conservative influence. They were the stage upon 
which brilliant talkers, both men and women, could 
display their incomparable wit and good breeding; 
but they were none the less the luxuries of the 

'Talleyrand, Memoirs, I, 9-11. 

^Arthur Young describes the reckless driving of the fashionable folk in 
Paris, and adds: "If young noblemen at London were to drive their chaises 
in streets without foot-ways, as their brethren do at Paris, they would 
speedily and justly get very well threshed, or rolled in the kennel." And he 
adds this very curious social deduction from the poor character of cabs and 
the absence of sedan-chairs: "To this circumstance also it is owing that all 
persons of small or moderate fortune are forced to dress in black, with black 
stockings." The antipathy of the revolutionary regime to all of the trap- 
pings of aristocracy may have been due in part to these facts. 



Social Contrasts and Morality 41 

wealthy. The simple fact that such institutions could 
flourish then, and only then, is a testimony to the 
poverty of political opportunity and the wealth of the 
dilettante spirit.' 

A meeting of the Sons of Liberty in distressed little 
Massachusetts might have been held at the same hour 
as the brilliant gathering in some Parisian salon. It 
could have been no more radical in its utterances; 
indeed, beyond the accidents of place and dress and 
etiquette, it could not have been more distracted with 
dreams of liberty. That one wrought a different 
result from the other is due, of course, to many 
causes, but to none more fundamentally than this: the 
salon was composed of dilettantes; the liberty meet- 
ing of Anglo-Saxon men of affairs. 

*"The society [in Paris] for a man of letters, or who has any scientific 
pursuit, cannot be exceeded. . . . Persons of the highest rank pay an 
attention to science and literature, and emulate the character they confer. 
. . . Politics are too much attended to in England to allow a due respect 
to be paid to anything else; and should the French establish a freer govern- 
ment, academicians will not be held in such estimation, when rivaled in the 
public esteem by the orators who hold forth liberty and property in a free 
parliament."— Arthur Young, in 1787. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE CLERGY AND RELIGION 

I. The Privileged and Unprivileged: i. The Higher Clergy; 
2. The Curates and Vicars; 3. Their Respective Incomes. 
II. The Clergy and the Peasants. III. The Clergy and 
Society: i. Their Attitude toward Intellectual and Religious 
Freedom; 2. Unbelief; 3. Credulity; 4. The Loss of Moral 
Influence. 

The relations of the Roman Catholic Church of 
France both toward the Pope and toward the govern- 
ment for centuries had been marked by a singular com- 
bination of independence and subservience. Into this 
troubled matter, however, it is not necessary for the 
student of the Revolution to enter. Until the forma- 
tion of the civil code of the clergy, which was to play 
so prominent a part in the early period of the Revo- 
lution, the clergy may be regarded as an order of the 
state so compacted by history and community of in- 
terests as to be practically a unit — certainly the most 
unified of the three orders of the nation. Yet even 
within the church there was the fatal cleavage into the 
privileged and the unprivileged. The former included 
archbishops, bishops, abbots, and other high clergy, 
while the curates, or country parsons, who did the 
great work of the church, constituted the mass of 
unprivileged. These curates, though as a class by no 
means models of pastoral activity, were in sympathy 

42 



The Clergy and Religion 43 

with the oppressed peasantry, for they themselves 
were drawn almost exclusively from the lower classes 
of the Third Estate, and could never hope to rise into 
the great offices. The church of France herein was 
inferior to the church of the Middle Ages. In the 
eleventh century the son of a poor carpenter became 
Gregory VII., and a wandering English priest, Ha- 
drian IV. A few figures will tell more eloquently than 
description just what the relation of these two classes 
to each other was. The total numbei of monks has 
been estimated at 23,000; of nuns, 37,000. Of the 
secular clergy there were 60,000 curates and vicars, 
and about 11,000 higher clergy. This in a population 
of 26,000,000 is not excessive. Yet the church held 
in real property in 1789 perhaps a fifth of all France. 
Its total wealth amounted to perhaps a billion dollars, 
and its total income was about $60,000,000.^ Of this 
sum the higher clergy had five-sixths, the curates had 
the rest. The average salary received by the curates 
in 1784 was the largest ever known in France, and 
it amounted to $140. This, considering the purchasing 
power of money, would have enabled them to keep 
body and soul together, but out of it they had to 
pay a tax of $15 or $20. "I pity," said Voltaire, 
"the lot of the country pastor, obliged to contend 
for a sheaf of wheat with his unfortunate parishioner." 
Contrast with this pittance the incomes of the higher 
clergy. Even a monk enjoyed an income of about 
$800 a year. The abbot of Clairvaux — the successor 
of St. Bernard! — never drove out except with four 

^536,000,000 from tithes and $24,000,000 from landed property; but these 
figures are not unquestionable, and include the cost of collecting- the tithes. 
Taine makes the total net income $40,000,000. {Ancietit Regime, 14.) 



44 The French Revolution 

horses and preceded by a mounted groom. The aver- 
age income of the 131 archbishops and bishops was be- 
tween JiOjOoo and $20,000. The abbot of Clairvaux 
had an income of $60,000 to $75,000; Cardinal de 
Rohan, of $200,000. His palace had 700 beds and 
his stables accommodation for 180 horses. He had 
fourteen butlers, and could entertain at one time 200 
guests with their servants. Cardinal de Rohan, it is 
true, was the most magnificent as well as wealthiest of 
the ecclesiastics, but others were not far behind him. 
If this well-to-do and privileged clergy had only 
earned their pay, if they had shared at all in the work 
of improving the condition of the lower classes, this 
disproportion in income would be more excusable; 
but as a matter of fact, with notable exceptions, the 
upper clergy were corrupt and useless. The curates 
ind vicars did about all the church work that was 
done. In many cases these unfortunate men were 
hired, at a beggarly pittance, by some clergyman or 
monastery enjoying a good income to attend to the 
work of the parish, while their employer enjoyed him- 
self in Paris. The abbot of Sainte-Croix de Bernay, 
in Normandy, received $11,400 a year, but lived in 
Paris and hired a curate for $210 to care for the 
parish of 4,000 communicants. And the worst of it 
all was that the curate, like the private soldier, had 
no hope of promotion. The higher clergy, like the 
officers, were drawn from the nobility and richer bour- 
geoisie. Of all the 131 archbishops and bishops, only 
five (and they the poorest) were from the lower classes. 
Ecclesiastical as well as military offices went by favor. 
The possible future the curate must expect was to 



The Clergy and Religion 45 

continue his work among the half-starved and over- 
taxed peasants, and keep body and soul together as 
best he could on his wages. It is only natural to dis- 
cover, therefore, that the curates sided with the other 
unprivileged classes, and when the opportunity came, 
opposed the upper clergy. 

The clergy derived a vast income from the tithes.' 
These were not always a tenth of the produce of the 
farmer, but are supposed by Taine to have equaled 
fourteen per cent of the entire product. Even if this 
be an exaggeration, it remains true that the tithes were 
paid by the peasant and not by the proprietor, and were 
therefore in addition to taxes and feudal dues. The 
chief if not the only justification for this ecclesiastical 
tax lay in the fact that the tithes constituted the only 
poor-fund in France. 

But we are not quite done with the higher clergy. 
In speaking of them, it has to be remembered that 
under the Old Regime the upper clergy were something 
more than mere pastors and preachers. They were 
also feudal lords, enjoying the privileges of feudalism. 
Thirty-two bishops and many abbots besides were the 
temporal as well as spiritual lords of cities and ter- 
ritory, the receivers of all sorts of feudal dues. As 
feudal lords, these great ecclesiastics held their courts, 
administered their estates, enjoyed their feudal dues, 
and maintained a glorious company of attendants. 
And what is far more disgraceful, as feudal lords some 
of them kept serfs. 

Un 1789 this amounted to ^36,600,000. See Bailly, Hist. Finan. de la 
France, II, 278. It is to be remembered that the church paid pjractically no 
taxes. When reorganized in 1790, approximately $37,000,000 were appro- 
priated by the state for all ecclesiastics. 



46 The French Revolution 

The influence of, the church upon social life had 
greatly diminished. The peasantry chafed under being 
forced to give fourteen per cent of their incomes to 
the clergy as tithes, hated the higher clergy as feudal 
lords, and appreciated their curates only as the curates 
shared in the common distress. Only in Vendee and 
a few similarly situated provinces were the upper 
clergy held by their people in such affection that 
actual civil war followed the attempt to put in force 
the constitution of 1791, with its provisions for making 
the clergy civil officials. Speaking generally, the 
church had lost its hold, also, upon the higher classes. 
The philosophic age was bitterly anti-ecclesiastical, 
even when not anti-Christian. Singularly enough, 
although holding strenuously to their ecclesiastical 
prerogatives, the upper clergy were affected by the 
current skepticism. A curate of Paris was once 
asked whether the bishops really believed the doc- 
trines upon which they insisted so strenuously. 
*'There may be four or five," he replied. It will 
not do to take such a bit of flotsam too seri- 
ously, but there can be no doubt that leading 
churchmen gravely discussed the probability of im- 
mortality, and were in some cases openly profli- 
gate. So far as its more lucrative offices were con- 
cerned, the church had become a mere profession, 
to which bright young men with no other prospects 
could be apprenticed. What religious influence 
could one expect to be exerted by men like Cardinal 
de Rohan, or like Talleyrand of Autun? Yet the 
church still persecuted Protestants. In Normandy 
we find the clergy wishing laws preventing the 



The Clergy and Religion 47 

"Protestants from building churches, and even from 
assembling at sound of the bell that called Catholics 
to service.'" The otherwise rather remarkably lib- 
eral cahicr of the clergy of Blois^ laments the exten- 
sion of religious liberty to Protestants, as well as the 
growing freedom of the press. Lomenie de Brienne, 
an archbishop though a notorious unbeliever, in 
addressing Louis XVI. at his coronation, said: "Com- 
plete the work of Louis the Great. To you is reserved 
the privilege of giving the final blow to Calvinism in 
your kingdom." This exhortation was very possibly 
merely official, but not so the work of clergy in Langue- 
doc, where the bishops controlled the province. There, 
almost to the time of the calling of the States General 
in 1789, congregations were broken up by dragoons, and 
Protestant ministers were hanged.* Even such cahiers 
of the clergy in 1789 as do not lament the extension 
of religious freedom to Calvinists, believe the royal 
decree of 1788 allowing them political protection far 
too generous. They would at least keep Calvinists 
out from all judicial offices, and Necker, when in fact 
at the head of the national finances, was not allowed 
his proper position in the cabinet simply because he 
was a Protestant. One cause of the great popularity 
of Voltaire during the latter part of his life is to be 
found in his securing a pension for the family of the 
executed Protestant Calas. 

'Chassin, Cahiers^ /7<^, II, 192. 

'Instructions given their delegates to the States General in 1789. 

^It is signed by fifty-three parish priests, fourteen priors, eight canons, 
eight priests, three deans, three abbots, three curates, a chaplain, a friar, 
a deacon, and twenty-seven unclassified persons. 

••Relatively this is not as atrocious as it sounds. Absolute religious 
freedom was practically unknown in the eighteenth century throughout 
Europe. Even in America it was a novelty. 



48 The French Revolution 

Despite (or quite as possibly, on account of) this 
intolerance, unbelief spread rapidly among the bour- 
geoisie and the nobility. In 1764 Hume, at a dinner 
in Paris, happened to say that he had never chanced to 
meet an atheist. *'You have been somewhat unfortu- 
nate," said his host; "but at the present moment you 
are sitting at table with seventeen of them." Indeed, 
it is altogether probable that in no other age has the 
great mass of intelligent persons so uniformly endeav- 
ored to fulfill the law of atheistic philosophy and rid 
themselves of "the fear of invisible powers." Horace 
Walpole, who would scarcely be classed among radical 
Christians, writes with fine sarcasm from France in 
1765, "They think me quite profane for having any 
belief left." Yet it is possible that as in so many 
aspects of French life a reaction had set in by 1789, 
for the more atheistic philosophy of Diderot had quite 
given way to the teachings of Rousseau, in which the 
idea of God played no small logical part. There was, 
however, no appreciable return to the church, and the 
conduct of leading ecclesiastics, as well as the enforced 
privations of the curates and vicars, made ecclesias- 
tical influence morally ineffective. 

Along with this decay of faith came a sudden, 
though natural, outburst of credulity among the bour- 
geoisie and nobles. In some ways this credulity was 
to have unexpected results. Believers in occultism 
joined themselves into the enigmatical society of the 
lUuminati, which was supposed to have lodges in all 
parts of France, and whose mysterious symbols, "L. 
P. D.," came later to be interpreted as Lilia pedibus 
distrue — "trample the lilies (of the house of Bourbon) 



The Clergy and Religion 49 

under foot." And there was Lavater, who could read 
men's futures in their faces, and Mesmer, who, driven 
politely from Vienna, came to Paris with his animal 
magnetism to win enormous popularity and fees, 
though at the end to be put to flight by a royal inves- 
tigating commission of physicians. And besides these 
there were not a few others — Cazatte, Montgolfier, 
Babceuf, Puysegur. But most fantastic of all the 
prophets whom the emancipated Parisians — and such 
provincials as were received — went out to see and to 
bring in to honor was one Cagliostro. This magnifi- 
cent charlatan began his career one can hardly say 
where, but in 1781 he was astonishing the people of 
Strasburg by his cures. He was one of the Illuminati, 
but exceeded the boldest of that body. He declared 
he had been a friend of Abraham, had been one of 
the guests at the wedding in Cana, and had discovered 
the art of living forever. His mighty gift of lying 
fairly dazzled society into taking him at his own valu- 
ation. De Rohan, a cardinal of the church, is said to 
have erected to him a marble bust with an inscription 
hailing him as God of the earth. His cures were 
counted miracles. He was said to make diamonds 
out of nothing. His charities were boundless, his 
wealth apparently limitless. Altogether he is the 
most splendid rascal of his sort one meets in history. 
But he was no more ready to deceive than society was 
eager to be duped. Take, for instance, his resurrec- 
tion of D'Alembert, the atheist, one of the writers of 
the Encyclopedie. Cagliostro gathered his audience at 
three in the morning and placed them in front of an 
iron chain and put out the light. A mysterious voice 



5o The French Revolution 

bade all unpleasant reptiles and unfree men depart. 
A gleaming chair appeared, with the words Philosophy^ 
Nature^ Truth successively appearing above it. The 
chain rattled, and in the chair appeared a skeleton 
wrapped in a winding-sheet. It was D'Alembert, long 
since dead. He could hear, but could not speak aloud. 
Cagliostro, however, knew what he would say! So 
they questioned him. Among others, some one asked 
him if he had seen the other world. True to his 
pre-mortal unbelief the ghostly philosopher replied, 
"There is no other world. " It does not seem to have 
been asked whence, if there were no other world, the 
specter came. Such skepticism would have been 
unworthy of these skeptics! 

It was inevitable that in this-breaking down of reli- 
gious authority and faith, morality itself should also 
have lost its authoritative elements, and to this cause 
must be largely attributed the spectacle of a society 
almost perfect in its outer habits lost in perverse 
immorality and selfishness. 

All this in time was to react with fearful violence 
upon the church itself. The sight of the luxury of the 
higher clergy, righteous indignation that they should 
wring their dues from peasants already overburdened 
with taxes, was working a fierce hatred of clergy and 
church alike. If the Revolution seems godless, the 
cause is to be found chiefly in the godless church of 
the Old Regime. Faith, indeed, there was in France, 
but a faith that had its grounds in philosophy, not 
religion. Reformers there were in France, and 
reforms — but nothing needed both more than the 



The Clergy and Religion 51 

church of France. The friend of the rich, living off 
the poor, the enemy of intellectual freedom, the 
champion of abuse, the sharer in moral degeneracy — 
the salt had lost its savor, wherewith could it be 
salted? 



CHAPTER V 

INTELLECTUAL EMANCIPATION THROUGH PHILOS- 
OPHY 

I. Montesquieu: i. Early Life; 2. Position as to Monarchy and 
the State; 3. Effect of His Work. II. The Physiocrats. 
III. Voltaire: i. Early Life and Remarkable Talents; 2. His 
Attitude toward Religion and the Church; 3. His Chief 
Significance. IV. The Encyclopedists: i. Hostility to Reli- 
gion; 2. General Destructive Influence. V. Rousseau: 
I. Early Life; 2. Dijon Essays; 3. The Social Contract ; 
4. His Extraordinary Influence on Society and Politics. 
VI. The Absence of Intellectual Freedom in France. 

The French Revolution was in large measure due 
to the passion for liberty and equality aroused by the 
great philosophical movement which swept over 
Europe during the eighteenth century. In no period 
of the world's history, except, perhaps, our own age, 
has thought been more active than in France during 
the half-century just preceding the Revolution. And 
there was no more potent agent in the destruction of 
the monarchy than the philosophy that seemed to 
many the chief ornament of the reigns of Louis XV. 
and Louis XVI. 

But France did not furnish the original material 
for this thought; that was done by the thinkers of 
Germany, and especially of England. Ideas, some 
one has said, have to pass through France to be popu- 
larized. Whether or not this is true universally, it is 

52 



Intellectual Emancipation S3 

certainly true of that peculiarly revolutionary thought 
that spread over all the western world in the eighteenth 
century.^ The mediating office of the French may be 
said to have first been filled by the great political 
philosopher Montesquieu/ Born of a noble family, 
and inheriting from his uncle the important and lucra- 
tive office of president of the Parlement of Bordeaux, 
after a few years of official life he sold his place and 
devoted himself to travel. He went to England in 
1729 as a friend of Lord Chesterfield, and immediately 
devoted himself to the study of its constitution. 
England seemed to him "the most free country in 
the world." From this visit may probably be dated 
his bias in favor of the English form of monarchy. 

The fundamental purpose of his political philosophy 
was the discovery of some absolute, natural standard 
of justice by which all laws might be tested and to 
which they should conform. But unlike some of his 
contemporaries, Montesquieu finds this standard in 
human reason. "Law in general is human reason in 
so far as it governs all the nations of the earth; and 
the political and civil laws of each nation should be 
but the particular cases to which that human reason 
is applied." And he goes on to say that "the 
government most in conformity with nature is that 
whose particular disposition is most in accord with 

'On the influence of English on French thought in the eighteenth cen- 
tury, see Buckle, History of Civilization in Eng-land, I, ch. 12. 

'Montesquieu's epoch-making work, Esprit des Lois (English transla- 
tion by Nugent, Spirit of the Laws), was published in 1748. It had been 
preceded in 1734 by his almost equally famous book, Considerations sur les 
Causes de la Grandeur et de la Decadence des Romains, which is the 
first serious attempt in modern times at presenting a philosophy of history. 
Previous to these works he had published, in 1721, Lettres Persiennes, a 
satire sometimes licentious but always witty, upon the France of the 
Regency. 



54 The French Revolution 

the disposition of the people for which it is estab- 
lished. "» 

Over against current French ideas he declared that 
*'the conjunction of the wills of individuals constitutes 
a state," and that laws "should be adapted in such 
a manner to the people for whom they are framed, 
that it should be a great chance if those of one nation 
suit another."^ Yet here he halts. A republic, he 
thought, could naturally have only a small territory, 
for in a large republic — and his words, written before 
1748, were, of course, those of total ignorance of any 
such republic — he supposed public good would be 
'^sacrificed to a thousand private views." A mon- 
archy, he goes on to say, should be of moderate rather 
than either small or great size; and he could see for 
an empire no possible form of government but a des- 
potism in which "the law should be derived from 
a single person."^ All this is far from revolutionary 
teaching; and how conservative he was appears also 
in these words: "It is sometimes necessary to change 
certain laws, but the case is rare; and when it comes 
they ought to be touched only with a trembling hand" ; 
and perhaps even more in his assertion that political, 
like moral good, lies between extremes.* 

So far as a correct philosophy of the state is 
concerned, Montesquieu was often far astray. His 
erudition, though great, was often superficial, and 
sometimes invalidated his generalisations. He mag- 
nifies the influence of natural forces like climate and 

'^Esprit des Lois, bk. i, ch. 3. 
^Esprit des Lois, bk. i, ch. 3. 
^Esprit des Lois, bk. viii, chs. 16-20. 
^Esprit des Lois, bk. xxix, ch. i. 



Intellectual Emancipation 55 

soil, he does not perceive clearly the distinction 
between absolute and responsible rulers; and although 
he recognizes the necessity of a division of the three 
functions of a state, he does not insist upon the inde- 
pendence of the judiciary. The effect of his work, 
marked as it was by profound learning and sober 
judgment, was greater in England and America than 
in France; yet even in France it served to bring into 
sharp relief the burdens and inequalities of a nation 
so far removed from anything like legal uniformity or 
the enjoyment of universal justice. But more impor- 
tant, it ushered in that great philosophical crusade of 
which Quesnay and the Physiocrats, Voltaire and the 
Encyclopedists, were the leaders. Beside the radical- 
ism of these philosophers the moderation of Montes- 
quieu is very marked; to the philosophers themselves 
it was immeasurably hateful.' 

At the same time that Montesquieu was laying the 
foundations for modern political science, Francois 
Quesnay and Jean Claude Marie Vincent were laying 
the foundations for modern economics. The so-called 
Mercantilist school of economists had held that national 
wealth depends upon the accumulation of precious 
metals by a country and the consequent maintenance 
of a "favorable" balance of trade. Agriculture had 
therefore been neglected, and commerce emphasized. 
The result of these teachings had been that from the 
time of their great French champion, Colbert, the 
minister of Louis XIV., government had devoted itself 

*The best biography of Montesquieu is Vian, Vie de Montesquieu. See 
further, Lowell, Eve of French Revolution, ch. lo; Flint, Fliilosopliy of His- 
tory, 262-280; Woolsey, Political Science, I, 168-171; Levy-Bruhl, History of 
Modern Philosophy in France^ ch. 5. 



^6 The French Revolution 

to the regulation of trade by all sorts of subsidies and 
restrictions. But both in France and England, as 
men came under the influence of the philosophical 
impulse, such artificial notions grew unpopular,^ and 
chiefly under the influence of Quesnay there grew up 
a school known as the Physiocrats, because of its 
insistence upon "nature." So far from regarding 
commerce as the sole source of a nation's wealth, the 
Physiocrats declared that however useful the calling of 
merchants might be, it was "sterile," since all their 
profits came ultimately from the farmer. It was but 
a legitimate outcome of these views when they taught 
that as the land was the sole source of wealth, so it 
should be the sole object of taxation. Further than 
this, they insisted upon the abolition of all govern- 
mental restrictions of an economic sort and upon per- 
fect freedom of trade as a natural right. ''''Laissez- 
faire^ laissez passer ' was the motto they would give to 
governments.^ "Let every man be free to cultivate 
in his field such crops as his interest, his means, the 
nature of the ground, may suggest as rendering the 
greatest possible return" — these words of Quesnay 
are a truism to-day, but were almost revolutionary 
when the Royal Council, through an intendant, fixed 
for a town or parish the crop it should plant, under 
threat of severe punishment. But even more revolu- 
tionary was the implication, more or less explicitly 
drawn by the school, that government, though neces- 

'Richard Cantillon was the forerunner of the new physiocratic school. 
See Jevons, Contemporary Review, June, 1881. His most important work, 
Essai stir la Nature du Commerce en General^ has been republished (1892) 
in Harvard University Publications. 

^On the Physiocrats, see especially Lalor, Cyclopedia of Political 
Economy, Art. "Physiocrats"; Bianqui, History of Political Economy, ch. 
32; Ingram, History of Political Economy^ ch, 5. 



Intellectual Emancipation 57 

sary so far as politics went, was a necessary evil, 
and that in the economic sphere every individual 
should be allowed his natural rights to labor when, 
where, and as he chose, and to enjoy the fruits of his 
labor subject to no indirect tax of any description. 
Monopolies and special privileges were not to be 
thought of. 

With their technical teaching as to natural laws 
governing wages and profits, with their belief in 
a "natural value" for all commodities, with the elab- 
orate exposition of the increase of the "net product" 
as the great desideratum in national economy — with all 
these, now, like other of their doctrines, hardly more 
than a part of the archaeology of economic science, 
we need not concern ourselves. But one must observe 
that in their general principles lay one source of an 
irrepressible conflict. Economic France was actually 
a mass of privilege, and to embody the teaching of the 
Physiocrat in law meant the destruction of privilege. 
And this was what Turgot, the greatest of the school, 
actually did while mtendant at Limoges, and attempted 
to do during the few months he was minister of finance, 
with what success will appear presently. 

But while the Physiocrats were seeking soberly to 
reform the scandalous economic condition of the 
nation, they were quite unnoticed in comparison with 
the Philosophers, whose chief virtues were abstract 
generalizations and an ability to appeal to elemental 
principles and passions. 

Here again there is the revolt against the iniquity of 
privilege. The entire philosophy of the eighteenth 
century, in France and out of France — as witness the 



58 The French Revolution 

American Declaration of Independence — is concerned 
with rights — natural rights. Privilege and inequality — 
these were the ineradicable traits of the Old Regime. 
Equality of rights and the destruction of all authority 
not based on nature — these are the core of the teach- 
ings of Voltaire, the Encyclopedists, and Rousseau, 

Obnoxious from its insincerity and pretensions, the 
church was the first representative of privilege and 
unnatural authority to provoke attack, and its most 
able, though by no means bitterest critic, was Fran- 
9ois Marie Arouet, better known from his assumed 
name, Voltaire.' 

Voltaire was born February 20, 1694. He received 
an education at a Jesuit college, and later became the 
secretary of the French ambassador at the Hague. 
He lost this position because of a love affair, con- 
ducted, it almost seems, as a sort of experiment in 
philanthropy. Returning to France, he attempted to 
study law, but was held by the authorities to have 
published a poem against the Jesuits, and was thrown 
into the Bastile. Then he turned to literature, and 
composed the drama of (Edipe, though for lack of pen 
and ink it was not written until his release. Once 
free, he composed the Henriade^ and mingled in the 
most brilliant society of the day. He became involved 
in a quarrel with a member of the Rohan family, who, 
finding the young poet more than his match in repar- 
tee, inveigled him from a reception into the street, 
where he was thoroughly beaten by lackeys. Voltaire 

'On Voltaire, see Desnoiresterres. Voltaire et la Societe Franfaise au 
XVI lie Steele; Morley, Voltaire; Flint, Philosophy of History, 289-304; 
McCarthy, French Revolution, 1, 40-56; Carlyle, Essays (Am. ed.), II, 5-78; 
Levy-Bruhl, History of Modern Philosophy in France, ch. 6. 



Intellectual Emancipation 59 

rushed to a fencing-master, and after a month's prac- 
tice, challenged the noble. Rohan refused to fight, 
and through family influence had Voltaire again 
thrown into the Bastile. After an imprisonment of 
six months, however, he was released, and immedi- 
ately went to England. There he lived three years in 
closest touch with the English philosophers, most of 
whom, it will be recalled, were deists. 

This sojourn in England was the turning-point in 
Voltaire's life. He had no love for a church and 
a nobility that had twice imprisoned him without 
trial, and on his return to the continent he threw 
himself passionately into a crusade against both, but 
especially against the former. From this time till 
his death, whether living with that most mathematical 
woman, Madame du Chatelet, or visiting and quarrel- 
ing with Frederick II. of Prussia, or enjoying the 
admiration — and fear — of all Europe in his retreat at 
Ferney, Voltaire was the most influential man of his 
age. His talent was almost universal. He was a good 
philosopher, a good scientist, a good historian, and 
a poet that barely missed being immortal. Nothing 
was foreign to his restless mind. One minute he is 
urging that dead people should be buried outside 
cities; at another he is an enthusiast for vaccination; 
now he writes volumes on physics; now he is experi- 
menting with light; now he writes a history of Louis 
XIV. or Charles XII. of Sweden, whose charm men can- 
not yet escape; now he is a poet and a dramatist, who 
lives down a generation of hatred and dies, all but 
literally, of glory. But in all he is a master of a satire 
and sarcasm that sting like acid; and in philosophy, 



6o The French Revolution 

history, science, poetry, theology, politics, satire, is 
he the incarnation of the spirit of a century that 
played at omniscience and laughed at belief in omnis- 
cience. 

He was no atheist; rather he was a deist. "If 
there were no God, we should have to create one," 
he said; and at Ferney he erected a little chapel bear- 
ing this inscription, Deo erexit Voltaire. And God 
must be just and intelligent. "I had rather," he says 
in Candide^ "worship a limited than a wicked God. 
I cannot possibly offend him when I say: 'Thou hast 
done all that a powerful, kind, and wise being could 
do. It is not thy fault if thy works cannot be as good 
and perfect as thou art." Yet at the same time so 
completely was he under the influence of his age's 
reaction against the church that he was capable of 
appreciating religion only in the same proportion 
as it was not characteristically Christian. Nor is it 
quite true that, as Carlyle says, the doctrine of the 
"plenary inspiration of the Scriptures is the single 
wall against which, through long years, and with 
innumerable battering-rams and catapults and pop- 
guns, he unweariedly battered."^ It is rather against 
the arrogant infallibility of the church of his day, 
whether Roman or Protestant; its insistence to the 
extent of persecution upon the necessity of accepting 
its doctrines; its hostility to free thought; its ascet- 
icism; its hypocrisy. Being naturally without vener- 
ation, and inimitable in his power of satire, in giving 
vent to this hatred he probably did more than any 
man of his time to break down the foundations of 

»CarlyIe, Essays, II (Am. ed.), 66. 



Intellectual Emancipation 6i 

regard for religious authority that also support regard 
for authority in general. Yet however much he 
sought to rid men's minds of superstition; however 
much — as in the case of the unjustly imprisoned heretic, 
Calas — he proved himself the champion of religious 
liberty; however much his life exhibited charity — it 
is hard for his most ardent admirer to construct from 
his writings a positive system of thought in any 
department, and least of all in politics. Here he is in 
sharpest contrast to his radicalism in theology. A 
man without land, he maintained, had no more right 
to have a share in government than a clerk had the 
right to manage his employer's business. But none 
the less, Voltaire must be credited with having done 
more than any other man of his day to destroy the 
intellectual inertia in France that made abuse possible. 
If the Reformation had its Erasmus as well as its 
Luther, so the Revolution had its Voltaire as well as 
its Mirabeau. 

But Voltaire was to be outdone as the destroyer 
of the bases of ecclesiastical and political authority. 
In 1727 Ephraim Chambers published, in England, the 
first genuine encyclopedia, and Denis Diderot was 
employed to edit the French translation of the work.* 
Diderot was already famous in the literary world, 
both for his brilliant falsifications and for his literary 
style, and in undertaking the task he was not content 
merely to reproduce the English work. Associating 
with himself as a co-worker D'Alembert,and enlisting 
the aid of nearly every literary man in France, he set 

'On the Encyclopedists, see Morley, Diderot and the Encyclopedists; 
Lowell, Eve of French Revolution^ chs. 16, 17; Taine, Ancient kcgime, 216- 
221; Levy-Bruhl, History of Modern Philosophy ift France, ch. 7. 



62 The French Revolution 

about the enormous task of issuing a work that, in 
his own words, should ''bring together all that had 
been discovered in science, what was known of the 
productions of the globe, the details of the arts which 
men have invented, the principles of morals, those of 
legislation, the laws which govern society, the meta- 
physics of language and the rules of grammar, the 
analysis of our faculties, and even the history of our 
opinions." The first volume appeared in 1751, and 
the second in January, 1752. A month later the work 
was suppressed by the Council as dangerous to royal 
authority and religion. None the less, the publication 
was continued, until in 1757 the work had reached 
the end of the letter G. Then, because of a most 
radical book of Helvetius, one of the leading Ency- 
clopedists, the storm broke out again, and it was not 
until 1765 that the remaining volumes were delivered 
to subscribers.^ 

The philosophical opinions contained in the Ency- 
clopedia itself are by no means conservative, as its 
history may very well suggest, but it gave its name 
to the group of scholars and philosophers most inti- 
mately concerned in its production, and the philo- 
sophical and political opinions expressed in other 
works of these Encyclopedists were radical in the 
extreme. In religion they did not stop with the deism 
of Voltaire, plead with them though he might, but 
they attacked not only Christianity, but immortality 
and God as well. If, according to Voltaire, God 
wound up the universe like a clock, and then from 

Mn 1772, eleven volumes of plates appeared; in 1776, four supplementary 
volumes ot text; in 1777, a supplementary volume of plates; in 1780, a table 
of contents in two volumes. The work passed through many editions. 



Intellectual Emancipation 63 

unknown space watched it go, according to Diderot, 
D'Alembert, Helvetius, Holbach, and their confreres 
there never was any God, and the universe wound 
up itself. In politics they were quite as extreme. 
As for morality, Diderot will have none of such con- 
ventions as marriage, and champions the most extreme 
of free-love doctrines. He finds in the ''natural," the 
uncivilized man the ideal being, and believes that he 
continues to live in every person. To give this 
"natural man" free scope was the ideal of the Encyclo- 
pedist school. Government was "a mere handful of 
knaves" who impose their yoke upon men. "We 
see," they said, "on the face of the globe only inca- 
pable, unjust sovereigns, enervated by luxury, cor- 
rupted by flattery, depraved through unpunished 
license, and without talent, morals, or good qualities. " 

And all this philosophical madness was set forth 
with such a wealth of learning and such a delightful 
self-assurance that the philosophers of France and the 
brillant talkers of the salons were soon atheists and 
anarchists of the most fashionable sort. 

This doctrine of the "natural man" brings us face 
to face with a character of most contradictory traits, 
but of immense importance, Jean Jacques Rousseau.^ 

Rousseau was born in Geneva, June 28, 1712. 
His father was a man of little kindness, and when his 

*The literature upon Rousseau is voluminous. The best in French is 
by Saint Marc Girardin and the best in English by Morley. Lowell, Eve of 
the French Revolution, cor\\.:i\ws, two admirable chapters, 18. 19; McCarthy, 
French Revolution, I, ch. 5, contains much interesting- material. His gen- 
eral philosophy of history is well treated in Flint, Philosophy of History, 
305-314; his political views, by Ritchie, Natural Rights, ch. 3, as well as by 



most writers on politics. See, tor instance, Woolsev, Political Science, 
Schlosser, History of the Eighteenth Century, 1,285-314. A good Englisn 
translation of the Contrat Social is that by Tozer (1805). See further, 
Brunetiere, History of French Literature, ch. 3; Levy-Bruhl,i'7?j/c7r)' of Mod- 
ern Philosophy in France, ch. 8. 



64 The French Revolution 

son was but a boy deserted him after having bound 
him over to a cruel master. Rousseau fled from the 
abuse to which he was subjected, and after a variety 
of vicissitudes in low life, all of which he tells with 
sentimental frankness in his Confessions^ he finally 
became an inmate of the house of a lady of rather 
accommodating morals, who was to play no small 
role in his life, Madame de Warens. After ten or 
a dozen years, being unable to endure the presence 
of a rival lover in the singular family circle, Rousseau 
went to Paris. There, now a man of thirty, he found 
the back doors — so to speak — of the literary world 
open to him, though he produced little or nothing for 
several years. In the meantime he copied music and 
collected plants for botanists, and thus supported him- 
self and an illiterate maidservant, Therese Levasseur, 
by whom he had five children, each of whom he 
promptly sent to the foundling asylum.^ When 
thirty-seven years of age, he tells us in the Coiifes- 
stons,^ he lay down one hot day under a tree and hap- 
pened to read in a newspaper that the Academy of 
Dijon offered a prize for the best essay upon the 
question, "Whether the Progress of the Arts and Sci- 
ences has tended to corrupt or improve morals?" 
Whereupon he wept for half an hour, then went home, 
wrote an essay to establish the negative answer, won 
the prize — and the "Gospel of Jean Jacques" had 
been born! Civilization he knew to be a curse, and 
the natural man the ideal of life. 

*It was characteristic of Rousseau to make a sentimental reference to 
this fact in the first book of Emile. He apparently thought that he had not 
sufificient courage or ability to give practically that education the theory of 
which he described with so much charm. See further, Morley, Rousseau, 1, 
119-129. 

"Part ii, bk. 8. 



Intellectual Emancipation 65 

It was nothing new. Philosophers for hundreds 
of years had taught the beauty of nature and the 
natural man; but Rousseau made the teaching dyna- 
mic in all departments of social life. 

The works with which he accomplished this end 
were On the Inequality among Men^ published in 1753; 
the New Heloise^ published in 1759; the Social Con- 
tract^ published in 1761; and Emile^ in 1762. It is 
hard to systematize their teachings, so miscellaneous 
and often — even in the case of his teaching as to 
civilization itself — so conflicting are they. There is 
practically nothing in the whole range of human 
experience upon which he does not give advice. 
Gardens, babies with colic, music, property, morals, 
swaddling-clothes, the proper shade-trees, illicit love, 
music, God, nursing mothers, all alike are considered. 
But back of the rambling discussions of his undoubted 
genius we can discover one fundamental passion — to 
rationalize the condition of humanity; to break down 
its artificial civilization, its unjust governments, and to 
turn men back to nature. Now this is something more 
than the negation of Voltaire and the Encyclopedists. 
Rousseau was not an iconoclast; his temper of mind 
was intensely constructive. And what is more, he was 
in earnest; and by his insistent cry of "Back to 
Nature!" he made a new era. 

Just v/hat Rousseau meant by Nature and the 
natural man is somewhat hard to say. Although he 
idealizes the American Indians, he distinctly says that 
the "natural" condition never existed on the earth ;^ 
and even if this be a purely formal concession to an 

'In his essav On the Inequality among Men. 



66 The French Revolution 

orthodox censor of the press, he knows nothing about 
primitive men to justify the ideal. In fact, all his 
"natural" men are pure imaginations — first cousins to 
the "economic" men of political economy. Yet this 
fact made no difference in the influence of his writ- 
ings. Real or unreal, back to nature men tried to go. 
In some directions the cry led to rational improve- 
ment. Rousseau became the founder of a sort of cult 
among .the fashionable and intellectual classes. His 
JVew Helo'ise^ for instance, could not be bought, so 
great was the demand, and each volume was let out 
at twelve sous an hour. Women of fashion sat up all 
night to read it. And it was more than a mere dissi- 
pation; it all but remade social ideals. Mothers who 
had forgotten they had babies began to nurse them; 
boys and girls who had been laced and powdered and 
taught gallantry ran out to play. Frenchmen came 
to love natural landscapes, and to grow suspicious of 
their beautifully regular gardens with their trees cut 
into impossible shapes. The world of fashion, even, 
liked to play at being an 7iaturel^ and the queen herself 
had little farmhouses built in the great park of Ver- 
sailles, and there, in the very same marble-lined dairy 
of Petit Trianon which we visit to-day, she made but- 
ter and made believe she was a farmer's wife. Louis, 
too, since all men ought to learn a trade against a 
coming revolution,^ practiced locksmithing, and loved 
to make strong-boxes — one of which was to bring him 
his death a few years later, when natural rights were 
being enjoyed. To this day education feels the influ- 
ence of Rousseau's educational insight, for Pestalozzi 

^Emile, bk. iii. 



Intellectual Emancipation 67 

was his pedagogical son, and every mother who sends 
her child to a kindergarten is all unwittingly a fellow- 
scholar with Froebel in the school of Emile} 

But even more influential and radical was the 
political philosophy of Rousseau. Utterly ignorant 
of the facts given modern scholars by anthropology 
and comparative politics, in his political theories 
Rousseau was wholly at the mercy of classical 
antiquity and a priori theory. Never having seen 
a "natural" man, he constructed him as he saw fit. 
And the result was a savage who was also a saint, for 
"coming from the hand of the Author of all things, 
everything is good. " ^ His saintliness indeed van- 
ished, but only because he had become less a savage 
and had devised private property in land. Civiliza- 
tion was, therefore, a curse, and the wise man's 
ambition would be to free himself from its destructive 
influences. 

This in the two Dijon essays. In the Social 
Contract he quite abandons this position, leaves his 
savages enjoying the thin air of theory, and seeks 
with sober sense to discover the real basis upon 
which the modern state may safely rest. His search 
is no longer for a "natural man," but for practicable 
liberty and equality — the two virtues most promi- 
nent by their absence in the France of his day. Nor 
does he any longer regard private property in land as 
evil; it is rather assumed as a fundamental fact in 
society. Even his equality is equality before the law. 

'The Ne-w Helo'ise so affected Thi^bault {Memoirs, I, 37) that when he 
reached St. Preux's last letter, he was "no longer weeping, but shrieking 
and howling like a wild animal." He dared not read any more of the tJook 
for a week, and then only a half or quarter of a page at a sitting. 

""Emile, bk. i. 



68 The French Revolution 

But one thing he still holds: "Man is born free, and 
everywhere he is in chains." Freedom and equality 
were, he held, to be gained by the recognition of the — 
purely imaginary — fact that the state is the outcome 
of a compact between men, in which each "places 
in common his person and his whole power under the 
supreme direction of the general will." This cor- 
porate body thus formed constituted the true sover- 
eign. Each citizen is a member of the sovereign. 
The will of this sovereign people is not only absolute, 
it is, though not always wise, always right. It there- 
fore must constitute the law, and if it allowed the 
king to reign, it would be only that he might prevent 
the clashing of individual interests. This is almost 
the only concession Rousseau makes to the actual 
facts of political history. 

When he passes on to carry out this general polit- 
ical conception into actual life, his thought of neces- 
sity grew thoroughly a priori. "What is the govern- 
ment?" he asks. "An intermediate body established 
between the subjects and the sovereign for their 
mutual correspondence, charged with the execution 
of the laws and with the maintenance of liberty, both 
civic and political."^ As the sovereign and the sub- 
jects would be, according to his philosophy, the 
same people, government cannot be a distinct polit- 
ical entity. It is at this point the revolutionary impli- 
cation is unavoidable. Strictly speaking, Rousseau 
recognizes no contract between subjects and rulers. 
The latter are simply organs of the people itself, 
and may be dismissed at any moment. "It is con- 

^ Social Contract, bk. iii, ch. I, 



Intellectual Emancipation 69 

trary, " says Rousseau, "to the nature of the body 
politic for the sovereign to impose upon itself a law 
which it can never change." Therefore — though 
Rousseau hardly dares put it quite so distinctly — ■ 
therefore, a sovereign people may depose its servant 
king. 

But it must be remembered that Rousseau cared 
nothing for what we call a republic. He seems even 
sometimes to prefer an elective aristocracy. But 
such an aristocracy would be only the servants of the 
people. Representative government he would not 
have; meetings should be held frequently, in which 
every citizen should vote on every question, for the 
"general will" alone is right. ^ Further, by pushing 
his theory of the infallibility of majorities and the 
subsequent subjection of the individual to the com- 
munity, Rousseau at the same time that he preached 
this absolute democracy, preached — although he 
denied it — a democratic despotism. "As nature 
gives each man," says he, "absolute power over his 
own limbs, so the social contract gives the body 
politic absolute power over its members and makes it 
the master of their possessions." There are to be, 
according to Rousseau, no checks upon this sovereign 
people except compulsory religion. The sovereign 
people should banish all those who say there is no 
salvation outside the church, and all those who say 
there is no God. 

In the light of modern political history it is not 
difficult to see the weakness in this theory of Rous- 

^Probably Rousseau was influenced in this by his experience with the 
city democracies ot Switzerland. 



70 The French Revolution 

seau. There never was any such compact between 
men, and civilization is not a curse, but a perpetua- 
tion of what in the main must be regarded as bless- 
ings. Popular sovereignty as he conceived of it is 
a chimera and a seductive fallacy. His demand that 
all citizens should take part in all deliberations would 
result either, as Voltaire prophesied, in anarchy, or 
as the Revolution demonstrated, in the tyranny of 
the mob and the club. His disregard of minorities 
and his relentless subjection of the individual to the 
sovereign is not liberty. Indeed, his entire philos- 
ophy logically would end not in liberty, but in equal- 
ity under a new sort of despotism. But after all this 
is admitted, there remains one magnificent thought — 
the rationality of society. And a rational society 
could be trusted to govern itself. 

For a country in the condition of France this con-, 
ception, if once universally joined with social discon- 
tent, meant" reform or revolution. That he succeeded 
in getting this great principle diffused throughout 
France, and indeed in the works of others throughout 
the world, gave his great significance to Rousseau. 
But he has yet a more specific importance. Not only 
was he a philosophical leaven, but to many he was an 
all but inspired prophet. Men tried to put his entire 
political gospel into operation — and its evangelists 
were Robespierre and St. Just, and its millenium was 
the Terror. 

One thing more, however, must be said. This 
great intellectual activity is not to be interpreted as 
arguing intellectual freedom in France. Madame de 
Stael was correct when she declared that the liberty 



Intellectual Emancipation 71 

of thought that characterizes the last days of an 
absolutism are evidence not of tolerance, but of 
weakness. In nothing was this weakness more ap- 
parent than in the attempts made to limit the free- 
dom of the press. Few works of any importance 
failed to bring their authors into trouble. "An 
author or a bookseller was forced to be as careful as 
a kidnaper of coolies or the captain of a slaver would 
be in our own time. He had to steer clear of the 
court, of the parliament, of Jansenists, of Jesuits, of 
the mistresses of the king and the minister, of the 
friends of the mistresses, and above all, of that organ- 
ized hierarchy of ignorance and oppression in all 
times and places when they raise their masked heads — 
the bishops and ecclesiastics of every sort and con- 
dition." ^ The Parlement of Paris and the other sov- 
ereign courts, the court of the Chatelet, even an 
ordinary tribunal of justice, had the right to burn 
publicly any writing judged to be contrary to religion, 
morals, or the state, and nearly every great work of 
the eighteenth century shared this fate.^ The arrest 
of the authors, printers, dealers, as well as the con- 
fiscation of all discoverable copies, followed whenever 
possible,^ and there were few famous French authors 
in the century who did not taste the bitterness of 
the Bastile or of exile. It is this fact that gives a cer- 
tain moral worth to even the worst of the literature of 

'Morley, Rousseau, II, 56; see also his Diderot, ch. 6. 

'It is said, however, that the hangman sometimes threw waste-paper 
into the fire instead of the books, and that these latter were afterward 
found in the library ot the judge! 

'For details, see Monin, L' Etat de Paris en 178Q, 467-478; Rocquain, 
V Esprit revolutionnaire avant la Revolution, ^()i-^yi, gives a list of works 
condemned from 1715-1789. 



7 2 The French Revolution 

the period. If men wrote recklessly, they also wrote 
bravely. In the case of the philosophers this must 
excuse much exaggerated misunderstanding of religion 
and morals. They were in earnest and they were in 
danger, and in some strange way one is thus forced 
to give Voltaire and Diderot, D'Alembert and Rous- 
seau some of the credit we give the martyrs of the 
church they attacked. 

To trace the process by which this struggle against 
intellectual tyranny and this extravagant love for 
abstract politics became united with economic and 
political discontent, and so produced a new French 
spirit, is the work of another chapter. 

General References to English Literature. — On 
the Old Regime, the most brilliant work is that of Taine, The 
Anciefit Regime, but there are others of great value: De 
Tocqueville, France before the Revolutioti of ijSg ; Arthur 
Young, Travels in France during the Years iy8y-g ; Lowell, 
The Eve of the French Revolution ; Dabney, The Causes of 
the French Revolution ; Kingsley, The Aticient Regime ; Roc- 
quain. The Revolutionary Spirit. Briefer accounts will be 
found in Louis Blanc, History of the French Revolution, Intro- 
duction; Allison, History of Europe, X, First Series, I, 1-60; 
Buckle, History of Civilization, I, chs. 8-14; McCarthy, French 
Revolution, I, chs. 1-14; Watson, The Story of France, I, 
chs. 37-39- 

Among memoirs, those of Madame Campan and of Baron 
Besenval are especially full of descriptions of the life at Ver- 
sailles. The biography of Marie Antoinette, by Saint- Amand, 
is interesting, but hardly unprejudiced. The same can be said 
of Mason, The Wo7nen of the French Salotis. Much valuable 
historical material is also contained in the delightful novel of 
Erckmann-Chatrian, The States General, and to a less degree 
in the stories of Dumas. 



PART II 

THE BEGINNINGS OF THE REVOLUTION 



CHAPTER VI 

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE REVOLUTIONARY 
SPIRIT UNDER LOUIS XV. 

I. Revolutions the Result of Spiritual Forces. IL The Struggle 
for Religious Freedom. IIL The Parlement of Paris and 
Its Struggle with Louis XV. over the Bull Unigenitus. 
IV. The Crisis of 1753-4. V. The New Influence of Phi- 
losophy. VI. The Coup d' Etat oi 1771. VII. The Liberal 
Spirit in the Various Classes of France: i. The Nobles; 
2. The Clergy; 3. The Masses of the City and the Provin- 
cials. VIII. The Moral Weakness of the New Spirit. 
IX. Its Universality. 

The difference between a revolt and a revolution 
in the last analysis is a question of success. If a 
revolt is unable to destroy existing constitutional 
forms, it is a political crime, and its leaders are pun- 
ished as traitors. If, however, it is able to bring 
about constitutional change, it becomes itself master 
of the state and its sympathizers become the govern- 
ment. Then it is properly called a revolution.^ 
A comparison of pre-revolutionary epochs, however, 
makes this statement mean either too much or too 

'The most important work upon this subject is, perhaps. Lombroso, La 
Crime politique et la Revolution, although tew would probably assent to 
some of the author's statements as to the physical conditions most potent in 
inducing social upheavals. 

73 



74 The French Revolution 

little. The success of any uprising against an exist- 
ing government which is of enough significance to 
warrant being called a revolution is something more 
than a triumph of mere physical force. It is an evi- 
dence of life, a spiritual movement — the result of a 
struggle of men with ideals against men with legalized 
privileges. To understand it one must look into the 
heart of an entire people as well as upon the deeds of 
some few desperate men. And therefore one must 
expect to find that dreams of betterment and disgust 
at abuses which leap forth at some moment to remake 
constitutions are the children of long pedigrees. A 
revolution no more than a state is born in a day, 
and the Revolution in France was no more the out- 
growth of sudden passion than it was of mere misery. 
It was the product of a century's discontent rational- 
ized and made constructive by philosophy. 

As regards political discontent, the development of 
the revolutionary spirit in France may be traced from 
the days of the Regency, but even then its chief ele- 
ment was a heritage from the last bigoted days of Louis 
XIV. The germ of revolution was the purely ecclesi- 
astical struggle for religious liberty between two par- 
ties of the Roman Church, the Ultramontanes and 
the Jansenists. Into the details of this controversy 
as it raged over the questions of papal infallibility, 
Augustinianism, Pelagianism, divine grace, and 
righteousness of works, it is quite unnecessary to 
enter. But it is indispensable to note that in 17 13 
the Jesuits procured from Pope Clement XI. the bull 
Unigenitiis^ by which one hundred and one of the 
Jansenist positions were pronounced heretical and 



i 



Development of the Revolutionary Spirit 75 

proscribed. February 14, 17 14, its provisions were 
registered by the Parlement of Paris as a law of the 
nation. Church and state grew thus united in oppo- 
sition to free thought. Although the death of Louis 
XIV. prevented the enforcement of the new law, 
throughout the ministry of Fleury persistent efforts 
were made to crush the Jansenists by the use of the 
powers of the state, and the "constitution" of the 
bull became the issue of a generation's constitutional 
struggles. In 1730 Fleury forced through the Parle- 
ment or High Court of Paris a law making it obligatory 
upon all ecclesiastics to accept the bull.' A few of 
the higher clergy, many of the lower clergy, the 
magistrates, the bourgeoisie^ the people at large, were 
at one in their hostility to the high-handed measures 
of the court. The question became political. The 
Parlement of Paris resisted to the very limit of obedi- 
ence, but to no purpose. Its president on wishing to 
speak was told by the king to keep quiet — '' Taisez- 
vous.'' Several members of the Parlement were 
exiled, and in 1732 its powers were distinctly de- 
creased. The people of Paris, as well as of all France, 
who — not quite correctly — saw in the Parlement the 
representative of the nation, became deeply involved 
in the struggle, now no longer a question of creed, 
but of the powers of Parlement, the one means of 
checking absolutism. 

^The Parlements were judicial, not legislative, bodies. The importance 
of the Parlement of Paris was great, since no decree of the king could be- 
come a law until the Parlement had formally registered it. Its only power 
of resistance lay in refusal to register, but even in such a case the king could 
force it to do his will or exile it if it still was disobedient. On the Parle- 
ments, see Desmazes, Le Parlement de Paris ; Bastard d'Estang, Les Parle- 
ments de France. A summary of the history of the Parlement of Paris is in 
Stephens. French Revolution, 1. 4. S- 



76 The French Revolution 

The succession of wars in which France became 
involved during the second quarter of the eighteenth 
century quieted domestic disputes, but at each lull in 
the military storm the effort of Fleury to crush the 
Jansenist party was renewed, but always with an 
increase of opposition on the part of the Parlement 
of Paris. The reverses of the French arms in the 
wars of the Austrian succession were not sufficient to 
arouse Louis XV. to the necessity of political reform, 
and the state remained under the astonishing leader- 
ship of the king's mistresses and Cardinal Fleury. 
Thought grew more restrained, and in 1742 an order 
of the Council destroyed the liberty of the press and 
made it a crime to have in one's possession books 
''injurious to good morals." 

The death of Fleury in 1743, and the consequent 
assumption of the responsibilities of royalty by Louis 
XV., brought little relief. War continued, and the 
consequent drafting of troops furnished the occasion 
of seditious outbreaks in the workingmen's faubourg 
(or ward) in Paris, St. Antoine, which was later to 
be so puissant in affairs of state. D'Argenson wrote 
in 1743, "Revolution is certain in the state." But 
he was mistaken. France had not yet been divorced 
from a regard for ancient authorities or concentrated 
on elemental justice. Discontent in itself is inca- 
pable of producing a revolution, and when in the 
next year Louis XV. announced that he would be 
at once a better king and a better man, all evidences 
of discontent were lost in national rejoicing. Ultra- 
montanism in the Council was repressed, a champion 
of toleration, D'Argenson, was put in charge of for- 



Development of the Revolutionary Spirit 77 

eign affairs. Literature, instead of being the object 
of government suspicion, was befriended ; and even 
Voltaire, in 1746, was authorized by Louis XV. to 
present himself as a candidate for membership in the 
Academy. The church at the same time ceased from 
religious persecution. 

But the quiet was of but short duration, and abso- 
lutism again soon exerted itself in restrictions. The 
Parlement was told that the bull Unigenitus contained 
"the law of church and state," and a vote of Parle- 
ment to the contrary was annulled by an order of the 
Council of State. The continuance of war not only 
brought desolation to the nation, but new taxes were 
imperative. Parlement, as far as it dared, remon- 
strated with the king, but to no purpose. Popular 
discontent grew marked. In vain the government 
gave great fetes to the people at the establishment of 
peace. No one shouted Vive le roi! and the crowd 
burned one of the triumphal arches. Peace itself 
brought new complaints, for the government broke its 
promises of remitting certain war taxes. 

The appearance of Montesquieu's great work upon 
the Spirit of the Laivs drew public attention to funda- 
mental political principles, and Parlement after Parle- 
ment refused to sanction the continued collection of the 
war tax of dixieme, or ten per cent.^ Government not 
choosing to yield all at once, attempted to substitute 
a tax of vingtienne^ or five per cent. The Parlement 
of Paris at first refused to register the law, but later 
did so, though entering upon their records the state- 

^They were those of Bordeaux. Aix, Pau. and Toulouse. It is to be 
noticed that thus early the provincial Parlements dare oppose the royal will. 



78 The French Revolution 

ment that they did so only at "the express command 
of the king." 

Religious persecution broke out again at the same 
time, and France was in consequence everywhere 
swept by fierce hostility to the Ultramontane party. 
At the same time all classes united in open criticism 
of the king's life and administration. Church and 
state, thus united in disregard of the rights of the 
people, were henceforth to be equally the object of 
attack. Everywhere there was agitation, and a 
crisis was reached in 1752-54. A certain Ultra- 
montane priest had refused to give the last sacra- 
ment to a Jansenist priest, Le Mere. The latter 
complained to the Parlement of Paris. That body 
ordered the Ultramontane to perform the proper 
offices to the dying man. The Royal Council 
promptly annulled the decree, and said it would 
attend to the matter itself. As a result, Le Mere died 
without the sacraments. Paris was thrown into the 
most extravagant excitement, and Parlement ordered 
the arrest of the offending priest. The king annulled 
this decree as well. Parlement replied by a decree 
forbidding the clergy to enforce the decrees of the 
bull Unigenitus against heretics. The Archbishop of 
Paris ordered forty hours' prayer "against the dangers 
threatening the faith," and appealed to the king. 
The public replied with numerous pamphlets. Parle- 
ment grew increasingly rebellious, and at last, on 
April 8, 1753, refused flatly, under penalty of incur- 
ring the royal disfavor, to register certain decrees 
enforcing obedience to the Unigenitus constitution. 
And thereupon, April 9th, it was exiled to Pontoise, 



Development of the Revolutionary Spirit 79 

and later to Soissons. Instantly it became more than 
ever a popular idol. Everywhere were heard and read, 
"Long live the Parlement! Death to the king and 
the bishops I" Opposition on the part of the pro- 
vincial Parlements was unified, and under the direc- 
tion of the exiled Parlement of Paris they began to 
solidify a universal opposition to church and state. 
Had the influence of the philosophers been as great 
in 1754 as in 1789, it is difficult to see why the Revo- 
lution should not have then broken out.^ 

The reason that the revolution did not break out 
in 1754, according to Rousseau, was the extraor- 
dinary excitement produced by his book upon French 
music, ^ and according to Grimm, the arrival in Paris 
of the Italian actor Manelli! Possibly each did 
something to relieve the tension of the Parisian 
mind, but the real explanation is something very 
different: The government became alarmed, and 
yielded. Parlement was recalled; the Ultramontane 
party was defeated, and recalcitrant archbishops and 
bishops were in turn sent into exile. It was a revela- 
tion of the possibilities of persistent and united oppo- 
sition which France could not easily forget. But the 
national rejoicing was short-lived. Louis XV. was 
sadly in need of money, and made concessions again 

'D'Argenson, writing in May. 1753, expressly states the opposition to the 
religion was not due to "the English philosophy," but to hatred against the 
priests. In June, 1754, he writes, "The revolution is more to be feared than 
ever. If it is to come to Paris, it will commence by the killing of priests in 
the streets." Koccim.xn, L' Esfirit Rcvoluiiojuiaire, 170, 179. Rocquain (180, 
181) goes on to show the advantages which would have accrued to France 
haa the revolution come at this time rather than in 1789. And there can be 
little doubt that the generation which elapsed between the two crises did 
much to bring destructive rather than reformatory forces to the front. In 
addition, Louis XV. would never have been the vacillating ruler his grandson 
proved to be. 

^Confessions, pt. ii, bk. 8. 



8o The French Revolution 

to the clergy in return for a promise of. a grant of 
funds. This sudden change in the royal policy was 
probably due to the influence of Madame de Pompa- 
dour, who by this time was the most influential person 
in France. 

In December, 1756, the king held a /// de justice^ 
in which Parlement was forced to register royal 
decrees that practically annihilated its own powers. 
All the excitement of two years previous was again in 
evidence, and again D'Argenson feared revolution. 
The /// de justice seemed to some "the last sigh of the 
dying royalty." More apprehensive souls thought 
that "Europe was threatened by a sinister revolu- 
tion." 

Again superficial judgments showed themselves 
false, for the attempted assassination of Louis XV.. 
by the wretched Damien, in January, 1757, led the 
government to take extreme measures. Members of 
different Parlements were banished, and even thrown 
into prison; leaders of both sides of the warring 
theological parties were also banished; troops were 
made ready, and a new law was promulgated punish- 
ing with death the publication of writings danger- 
ous to the authority of church or state. These 
severe measures restrained popular feeling, but it 
broke out with renewed bitterness after the defeat 
of the French at Rosbach (1757), and the attempt to 
levy an additional tax in the shape of a "gift" upon 
all towns and villages in the nation. One of the 
numerous placards of the day maintained that three 

'This term denotes a session of the Parlement held by the king in per- 
son, in which all debate was forbidden and the Parlement was forced to 
register a law under penalty of severe punishment. 



Development of the Revolutionary Spirit 8i 

hundred thousand men, under a leader, were ready- 
to take arms in support of a revolt. 

All this developing spirit of revolt, it should be 
recalled, had as yet been practically untouched by 
philosophy. So far is it from being true that Voltaire 
and Rousseau originated the Revolution. But discon- 
tent is neither unifying nor constructive. A nation 
must have an issue and an ideal if it is to be regenerj:^ 
ated. It is therefore of the first importance to dis- 
cover that just at this time the gathering opposition 
to historical authority should have found its theoreti- 
cal justification in a philosophy at once destructive 
and constructive. Under its influence, the spirit of 
discontent entered upon a new stage — it became 
truly revolutionary. It now had those universal 
watchwords so necessary for a popular movement; 
it had its philosophical weapons with which to attack 
church, state, and privilege alike; every year it 
had suggested to it new ideals of political and social 
reconstruction. After 1765^ it was but a question 
of time before the results of this new spirit should 
appear. By 1771 the government was in despair. 
The recalcitrant Parlement of Paris, supported by 
popular opinion and the philosophy of the salons, 
could be neither cajoled nor threatened into doing 
the king's will. The church could give no aid, 
for the questions now under discussion had ceased 
to be ecclesiastical, and were purely civil, and the 
Jesuits had been suppressed by the Pompadour. At 
last, January 20, 177 1, under the inspiration of the 

*It is worth remembering that it was also at just this time that the 
American colonies entered upon that course ot action that led to the Ameri- 
can Revolution. 



82 The French Revolution 

prime minister, Maupeou, Louis XV. executed a coup 
d'etat. The members of Parlement were exiled, their 
property confiscated, and the Parlement itself com- 
pletely suppressed. Before the year was out the pro- 
vincial Parlements were also suppressed and their 
functions assumed by six new courts. 

It would be historically incorrect to think of the 
Parlement of Paris, or the Parlements of other sec- 
tions of France, as composed of pure-minded patriots. 
So far from being anything like the English Parlia- 
ment, they had no true legislative powers. Their 
members belonged to the privileged classes, and wished 
nothing less than reform. As corporate bodies they 
were without exception corrupt and often cruel. 
Their members purchased their positions, and used 
them as served their ends best. Their very opposition 
to the king had been largely inspired by their deter- 
mination to maintain their own privileges. But corrupt 
as it was, the Parlement of Paris in withstanding the 
king had become the mouthpiece of discontent. Now 
that it was abolished, there was practically no body 
to oppose royal encroachments. So long as Louis 
XV. lived, it is true, resistance was reduced to riot- 
ings and pamphlets, but public opinion grew daily 
more determined to have some sort of expression of 
the national wishes. It was suggested that the States 
General — the one national body — should be recalled 
from the grave to which Louis XIII. had sent it in 
1614. But the old king set himself fiercely against the 
proposal. "If my own brother were to make the sug- 
gestion to me," he said once, in substance, "I would 
not wait twenty-four hours before executing him," 



Development of the Revolutionary Spirit 83 

and he allowed his minister Maupeou to crush every 
corporate body that in any way dared oppose the royal 
will. But such severity could not endure, and among 
the first acts of Louis XVI. was the reinstatement of 
the suppressed Parlements, only to find that punish- 
ment had but increased their capacity for opposition 
— in his reign, unfortunately, to proposed reforms 
rather than to the encroachments of the sovereign. 

The leaven of idealism was not to work only among 
hard-pressed lawyers and judges. The great enemy 
of the philosophers during the last days of Louis XV. 
was Siguier, advocat general^ and his apprehensions 
furnish a striking testimony to the extent of their 
influence. "The philosophers," he says, "have set 
themselves up as "teachers of the human race. Liberty 
of thought is their cry, and this cry has made itself 
heard from one end of the world to the other. With 
one hand they have attempted to shake the throne; 
with the other they have wished to overthrow the 
altars. Kingdoms have felt their ancient foundations 
totter, and the nations, astonished at seeing their 
principles annihilated, have asked by what fate they 
had become so different from themselves. In their 
numberless writings the philosophers have spread 
abroad the poison of unbelief; eloquence, poetry, his- 
tory, romance, even dictionaries have been infected. 
Scarcely have their writings been published in 
the capital, when they spread like a torrent in the 
provinces. The contagion has penetrated into the 
workshops, and even into the huts of the peasants." '^ 

As for the nobility, it is noteworthy that there were 

^Rocquain, U Esprit Revolutionnaire, 278. 



84 The French Revolution 

many who were under the influence of the ideals of 
the philosophers. Especially was this true of the old 
aristocracy — that "of the sword" — in which were 
numbered men like de La Fayette, d'Aiguillon, de 
Noailles, the two brothers de Lameth, de Montmo- 
rency, de La Rochefoucauld, together with many of 
the younger noblesse. The cahiers which were pre- 
sented by the Second Estate in 1789 show no small 
influence of liberal thought. Thus at Paris the nobles 
direct their representatives to the States General to 
see to it that the new body draws up "an explicit 
declaration of the rights which belong to all men. "^ 
The nobles of Clermont in Beauvoisis, Mantes, and 
Menton do the same. The nobility of the bailliage of 
Tours formally declared that they were "men and 
citizens before being nobles," and declared that they 
would resign all privileges in the matter of taxation. 
To the meeting of the electors of the Third Estate 
in Berry, the Comte de Buzanyois declared, "We are 
all brothers, and are anxious to share your burdens." 
The nobles of Rheims petitioned the king to order 
the demolition of the Bastile. 

These liberal nobles, however, constituted only 
a hopeful minority of their order, and few even of 
them were accustomed to political life, and were thus 
quite incapable of perceiving the practical results of 
their theories. Philosophy was for them, as has been 
said, "confined to the limits of speculation, and never 
seeking, even in its boldest flights, anything beyond 
a calm intellectual exercise."^ The only exception 

'Chassin, Cahiers, lySg, II, 15. 

*Morellet, Memoires, I, 139; quoted by Taine, Ancient Regime, 279, n. 



Development of the Revolutionary Spirit 85 

of importance to this statement lies within the sphere 
of sentiment. Women of quality dined with the 
grocer-woman who had been chiefly instrumental in 
bringing about the release of Latude, a wretch who 
had been kept in prison thirty-five years for attempt- 
ing a practical joke upon Madame de Pompadour. 
La Fayette disobeyed the order of the court, bought 
a frigate, and went to aid the colonies of America in 
their struggle for the "natural rights" set forth in the 
Declaration of Independence. In some regions the 
most influential men defended the peasant against 
the tax-collector, and a governor of one province 
delivered a course on bread-making. When these 
enthusiasts went further and preached doctrines of 
natural rights to the masses, results could not fail 
to be revolutionary. In truth the theorists of the 
eighteenth century were summoning a dangerous 
genius when they undertook to inspire restless, igno- 
rant, ill-regulated minds with dreams of liberty. Vol- 
taire put the matter to the Encyclopedists distinctly: 
"Philosophize between yourselves as much as you 
please. I fancy I hear dilettanti giving for their own 
pleasure a refined music; but take good care not to 
perform this concert before the ignorant, the brutal, 
the vulgar; they might break your instruments over 
your heads." It was this same sense of the danger 
attending the destructive philosophy of the day that 
led to Voltaire's other remark: "Atheism and fanat- 
icism are two monsters which may tear society to 
pieces." But neither the Encyclopedists nor these 
philanthropic enemies of the privileges upon which 
they depended for their incomes saw the wisdom 



86 The French Revolution 

of the observation, and the ferment was ever the 
greater. 

Among the clergy, the abused curates and vicars, 
most of whom were Jansenist in sympathy, shared 
pretty generally in this renaissance of liberal senti- 
ments, and among the higher clergy, strenuous for 
their rights as they were, there were some who were 
ready to assist their peasants to meet and overcome 
want. The Bishop of Castres directed his curates to 
see to it that potatoes are cultivated among their 
parishioners. The Archbishop of Paris gave a for- 
tune to the hospital of the Hotel Dieu. But the lib- 
eral clergy were far less doctrinaire in their chase 
after natural rights than were the liberals of other 
orders. The sense of need growing from actual con- 
tact with the poor, as well as a practical knowledge 
of the impossibility of educating them for reform, 
seems to have made the curates less enthusiastic for 
change. Ecclesiastics as a class have never been very 
keen after novelties, and the French ecclesiastics of 
1774-89 least of all. 

Among the masses the same ideals were rapidly 
spreading. Discontent might well be permanent in 
a people oppressed like the peasants and artisans of 
France. The annals of the. time are full of violence, 
of local revolts, riots, and protests. Philosophical 
teachings like Rousseau's found men waiting to 
receive them, or at least to read desirable contents 
into their general phrases. "Popular sovereignty" 
became everywhere the possession of the artisans and 
the masses of the cities, especially of Paris. The 
peasants, it is true, could not have fully shared in the 



Development of the Revolutionary Spirit 87 

beautiful dreams of philosophy, but they began to feel 
that their discontent was being reinforced, and perhaps 
even quieted, by respectability. A poor woman in the 
neighborhood of Metz, in July, 1789, could tell Arthur 
Young that "something was to be done by some 
great folk for such poor ones as she, though she did 
not know who nor how. "^ At the best, however, 
their notions, with those of the populace of Paris, 
could have been but crude. Even the provincial mid- 
dle class struck Arthur Young as stupid. Everybody 
he found talking, but heard from them — at least in 
Metz — not one word for which he "would give 
a straw." "Take the mass of mankind," he goes on 
to say, "and you have more sense in, half an hour in 
England than in half a year in France."^ But there 
is no evidence of any widespread determination on 
the part of the peasants to have revenge. They were 
ready to poach upon their lord's preserves, and if 
need be to kill a gamekeeper, but they seldom did 
any violence to the lord or his family. Their 
ignorance and brutality, however, were capable of 
almost any excess under excitement, and therein lay 
danger. 

And here we meet one lamentable characteristic of 
the revolutionary spirit as it developed during the 

* Travels in France, Bohn ed., 197. 

^His journal abounds in similar comments. Thus, in August, 1789, he was 
in Moulins, a capital of a province and a considerable town, and found no 
newspaper in the leading cafe. " Here is a feature," he writes, "of national 
backwardness, ignorance, stupidity, and poverty. Could such a people as 
this ever have made a revolution or become free.? Never in a thousand cen- 
turies. The enlightened mob of Paris, amid hundreds of papers and publi- 
cations, have done the whole." A few days later in Clermont he writes: 
"I dined or supped four times at the table d'hote, with from twenty to 
thirty merchants and tradesmen, officers, etc., and it is not easy to express 
the insignificance, the inanity of the conversation. The ignorance or the 
stupidity of these people must be absolutely incredible," 



88 The French Revolution 

reign of Louis XV. If it was mutinous and brutal 
among the worst of the people, among the best people 
it was morally selfish, or at best morally neutral. 
The Christian ideal had been lost in the legitimate 
contempt for selfish and hypocritical ecclesiastics, 
and the constructive work of the philosophers had 
been based upon rights^ not upon duties. The more 
one reads the literature of the times, the more is he 
convinced that so thoroughly had the French been 
debauched by state and church, noble and lawyer, 
that true moral ideals had largely disappeared, not 
only in the relations of the sexes, but in general 
theory. It is not only that everywhere was actual 
corruption; the much-vaunted "fraternity" had be- 
come only a high-sounding bit of rhetoric. Liberty 
may be gained by violence, but never fraternity; 
indeed, without the supplementary and regulating 
concept of love, the demand for liberty and equality 
can lead only to violence. No man of the nineteenth 
century has better understood the revolutionary spirit 
than Mazzini, and this is the judgment he passes 
upon the Revolution: "The error of the French Revo- 
lution was not the abolition of monarchy. It was the 
attempt to build up a republic upon the theory of 
rights, which, taken alone, inevitably leads to the 
acceptance oi les faits accomplis ; upon the sovereignty 
of the Ego^ which leads sooner or later to the sover- 
eignty of the strongest Ego; upon the essentially 
monarchical methods of extreme centralization, intol- 
erance, and violence; upon that false definition of life 
given by men educated by monarchy and inspired by 



Development of the Revolutionary Spirit 89 

a materialism which, having canceled God, has left 
itself nothing to worship but force." ' 

Before passing to the consideration of the succes- 
sion of ill-managed and unsuccessful attempts under 
Louis XVI. to express this new spirit in the actual 
administration of the nation, one must recall the fact 
that this spirit of discontent and idealism was by no 
means confined to France. Indeed, it characterized 
the history of most of the western world during the 
last quarter of the eighteenth century. In France 
it went to greater extremes, because it was neither 
properly restrained nor directed, but philosophical sen- 
timentalism was sweeping over all lands. Jefferson 
in America, Richardson in England, Goethe and 
Schiller in Germany, were but a few of its represen- 
tatives. The secret order of the Illuminati endeav- 
ored to unite under mysterious vows all liberal spirits 
in Europe for the purpose of spreading revolutionary 
teachings. Politics were making discontent epidemic. 
The partition of Poland by Russia, Prussia, and Aus- 
tria was the international counterpart of the suppres- 
sion of Parlement by Louis XV. ; yet, as it proved, 
it was not only an exhibition of irresponsible power, 
but also an unintentional step toward a formulation 
of international law. Joseph II. of Austria,^ by his 
arbitrary suppression of the ancient rights of Hungary 
and Bohemia, awoke that national feeling among the 
Czech subjects of the Hapsburgs that to-day bids fair 

*Essay on M. Renan and France. In the same essay, Mazzini has this 
fine statement: "Revolution is sacred and legitimate only when undertaken 
in the name of a new aim upon the path ot progress, capable of ameliorating 
the moral, intellectual, and material condition of the whole people." 

^See Schlosser, Hist. Eighteenth Century^ V, 356, seq., Sorel, U Europe 
et la Revolution Franfaise, I, chs. i, 2. 



9° 



The French Revolution 



r 



to dismember the Austrian Empire. The same mon- 
arch, in 1784, brought the Austrian Netherlands to 
the verge of revolt by abolishing the privileges of the 
clergy and nobles in the Lowlands. The American 
colonies rose against the anachronistic obstinacies 
of George III. and not only achieved independence 
and statehood, but what was of far greater signifi- 
cance to the contemporary passion for doctrinaire 
politics, also proved, by the aid of the French army 
and navy, that "all men are created free and equal." 
^ Thus as we look back upon the century, it is clear 
that the French Revolution was no sudden outbreak 
of passion, still less "an explosion of gunpowder." 
It was rather the culmination of a long social process, 
in which the spirit of France had outgrown its irra- 
tional, impotent government and the abominations of 
a dead feudalism; and under the influence of the phi- 
losophy of the age had struggled, not quite impotently, 
toward political and social reforms. Had this process 
continued under better direction, it might have ended 
in a constitutional evolution that would have accom- 
plished peacefully all the reforms the Revolution 
bought with blood. 



\ 



CHAPTER VII 

THE REFORM MOVEMENT UNDER TURCOT AND 
NECKER 

I. The Accession of Louis XVI, II. Turgot: i. His Reforms 
in General; 2. Enthusiasm of the Nation; 3. His Difficul- 
ties; 4. The Re-establishment of the Parlement of Paris; 
5. Its Struggle with Turgot; 6. Turgot's Dismissal. HI. 
Necker: i. His Character; 2. The Public Debt; 3. Neck- 
er's Methods of Meeting the Financial Crisis; 3. His Pro- 
posed Reforms; 4. His Dismissal and the Compte Re7idu\ 
5. Significant Facts of His Administration — {a) The Amer- 
ican Revolution, {U) Growing Hatred of Marie Antoinette, 
{c) Apparent Prosperity. 

On the night of May 10, 1774, the crowd of cour- 
tiers rushed with "a mighty noise absolutely like 
thunder" down the great staircase at Versailles to 
announce the death of Louis XV. to Louis and Marie 
Antoinette. The news was not unexpected, for the 
old king was known to have the smallpox; but in 
a sudden burst of emotion the new sovereigns fell 
upon their knees and prayed: "O God, guide us and 
protect us! We are too young to reign." ^ 

There is no evidence that Louis knew what reforms 
were needed by France. He had never been given 
any proper training for his official future, and now, 
hardly more than a boy, he was without any prepara- 

'Louis XVI. was nearly twenty, and Marie Antoinette not nineteen. A 
veritable literature has grown up around Marie Antoinette. Tlie original 
materials are chiefly to be found in the Memoirs of Madame Campan, her 
lady-in-waiting, and in Arneth and Geftroy, Correspondance Secrete. Saint- 
Armand has a good popular life of the queen. 

91 



92 The French Revolution 

tion except that of a private virtue, which, if unique 
in the royal house of the Bourbons, by no means fitted 
him for ruling a nation in the condition of France. 

The first cabinet of the new reign was avowedly 
bent upon reform, and Louis called to his aid the one 
great administrator produced by France between the 
days of Colbert and Napoleon Bonaparte, Anne 
Robert Jacques Turgot/ He had already made 
remarkable improvements in the Limousin, over which 
he had been intendant, and his appointment by Louis 
XVL as controller of the finances was an evidence 
of the young king's sincerity. Turgot refused to take 
any steps looking toward constitutional monarchy. 
He was not interested in politics as such, but set 
about the rehabilitation of France by the destruction 
of economic abuses.^ First of all, in order to meet 
the fearful famine of 1774, he abolished all tariffs on 
grain passing between the provinces of the kingdom. 
Then he abolished the corvee^ or forced labor on roads 
and other public works. Then he abolished the trade 
guilds and their monopolies. At the same time he 
declared against any new taxes and proposed tax 
reforms,^ and undertook to bring the expenses of the 
state into agreement with its receipts. Liberty of 
religion and the press he also championed, though 

»The best English life of Turgot is that by W. W. Stephens. See also 
Morley, Critical Miscellanies, Second Series; Batbie, Turgot— Philosophe, 
Economiste et Administrateur. 

*His political views appear in his "Memorial to Louis XVI. on Munici- 
palities": "The rights of men gathered in society are not founded on their 
history as men, but in their nature. There can be no reason to perpetuate 
establishments which were made without reason. ... So long as your 
Majesty does not stray beyond the lines of justice, you may regard j^ourself 
as an absolute legislator."— See Stephens, Life and Writings of Turgot, 
265, seq. 

^Some wit suggested that he was preparing for a St. Bartholomew Day 
for intendants. 



The Reform Movement 93 

less energetically. Louis promised him full support. 
"I will share all your views, and always support you 
in the courageous steps you will have to take," he 
said. The country grew sanguine that a new era was 
about to dawn. Voltaire wrote D'Alembert: "It 
seems to me as if there were a new heaven and a new 
earth."' 

But even a king with the best of intentions and 
with a physiocrat for reform minister could not meet 
popular expectations. Every reform meant a loss of 
privilege, and the very rapidity with which decree 
followed decree swept all classes of the privileged 
into one concentrated party of opposition. Tur- 
got's reforms did not immediately reduce the price of 
bread, and in all parts of France, riots — "the grain 
war" — broke out, which had to be put down by the 
military. One mob even came to the palace at Ver- 
sailles. The spirit of the Parisian proletariat grew 
desperate. "If the rich do not come to the help of 
the poor and take no pains to provide them with 
bread," ran one of the numerous anonymous letters 
and placards, "the poor will demand it with armed 
hand." 

None the less this rapid "bleeding of the nation," 
as a high court l*ady termed Turgot's reforms, might 
have continued indefinitely, and might even have made 
the Revolution impossible, had it not been for another 
of Louis XVI. 's acts, which, though prompted by 

^Madame Roland wrote at this time: "The ministers are enlightened and 
well disposed, the young king docile and eager for good, the queen amiable 
and beneficent, the court kind and respectable, the legislative body honor- 
able, the people obedient, wishing only to love their master, the kingdom 
full of resources. Ah. but we are going to be happy!" Talleyrand was 
equally hopeful. See his Memoirs, I, 17. 



94 



The French Revolution 



kindliness, was utterly unwise — the recall of the Par- 
lement and the abolition of the courts established 
by Maupeou. The reinstatement of Parlement was 
a defeat for Turgot, and, as it proved, was to be 
the occasion of his downfall. From the moment 
of its reappearance it opposed reforms, and Turgot's 
decrees were registered with increasing difficulty. 
Unfortunately, also, the masses misinterpreted the de- 
crees to mean the abrogation of feudal privileges in 
general, and the wave of disorders which swept over 
the nation aided the opposition. 

The king showed signs of weakening. His minis- 
ter endeavored to recall him to something better than 
sentiment. "Do not forget, sire," he wrote April 30, 
1776, "that it was weakness which put the head of 
Charles I. on the block." But Louis lost confidence 
in the reforms and in Turgot himself. The pressure 
from Maurepas and the court party grew greater. 
Marie Antoinette, who had always detested the fat, 
reserved, awkward guardian of the treasury, became 
enraged at the recall of one of her friends who 
had been minister to England, and demanded that 
he should be reinstated with the title of duke, and that 
Turgot should be discharged and sent to the Bastile.^ 
Then Louis yielded, and on May 12, 1776, Turgot was 
dismissed, and the state passed over into the hands of 
the court party. 

Resultless as it appeared, Turgot's work was of 
the utmost importance, in that it gave France a taste 

^Marie Antoinette wrote her mother, the Empress Maria Theresa, that 
she had nothing to do with the removal of Turgot. But we have Mercy's 
letter to the empress giving the account in full. Both letters are in Arneth 
and Geffroy, Correspondance, II, 441, 442. 



The Reform Movement 95 

of what honest administration could do for the 
unprivileged. 

Cluny, Turgol's successor, in the few months of 
his official life, undid as many of Turgot's reforms as 
possible. The corvee once more was enforced, 
monopolies again throve, all reforms in taxation were 
abandoned, and economy was thrown to the winds. 
As his financial measures he established a royal lot- 
tery, and proposed to declare the state bankrupt. By 
October, 1776, Cluny had squandered all that Turgot 
had succeeded in saving. Death, however, fortunately 
removed him, and Maurepas, the prime minister, 
reverting again to the original policy of reform, gave 
the portfolio of finance to Jacques Necker, a Genevese 
and a Protestant. Because of this latter fact the new 
appointee was not allowed the rank of minister and 
a place in the cabinet, but had only the title of 
director of finance. The court party despised him, 
and with Talleyrand^ chose to believe "that with his 
fantastic hat, his long head, his big body, burly and 
ill shaped, his inattentive airs, his scornful demeanor, 
his constant use of maxims painfully drawn from the 
laboratory of his mtJid, he had all the appearance of 
a charlatan." But self-important as he was, the 
court did Necker injustice. 

Of the two dangers which threatened the state, 
bankruptcy and inequality of privilege, the latter has 
perhaps been sufficiently described, but the financial 
difficulty requires explanation. As in the case of 
other evils, the financial distress of France may be 

•Mhtioircs, I, 37. Von Hoist, French Revolution, I, 104, calls Necker a 
"bold juggler." Gouverneur Morris thought him not a great man. 



g6 The French Revolution 



} 



traced to Louis XIV. His suicidal wars and religious 
persecution, coupled with boundless extravagance, 
had bequeathed to his successors a fixed debt of but 
little less than five hundred million dollars (2,471 mil- 
lion livres). The maladministration, wars, and 
extravagance of Louis XV. had increased this debt, 
and although it is impossible to give figures that are 
accurate, so lacking are we in reliable information, it 
is safe to say that at the accession of Louis XVI. the 
national debt of France amounted to more than five 
hundred million dollars. There were few if any years 
in which honest statements would not have shown 
a deficit. The total expenses of the nation at the 
accession of Louis XVI. were estimated at 399,200,- 
000 livres, and the receipts at 371,980,000 livres. 
Even on this reckoning there was a deficit of between 
five and six million dollars, but as a matter of fact the 
deficit was nearer ten million.^ So far as the debt 
itself went, the matter would not to-day be counted 
serious. Modern France, with a population only half 
as large again, carries successfully a debt of more 
than six billion dollars.^ Besides, France was in 
many ways economically convalescent. The deficit 
was not as great as it had been in 1715.^ Commerce 
in 1778 was double that of 1763, and as has already 

^See Boiteau, Efai de la France en j'jSq, ch. 15. Adam Smith, Wealth 
of Nations, bk. v, ch. 3, says on the authority of the Parlement of Bordeaux, 
that in 1764 the public debt was 2,400,000,000 livres. See further, Stourm. 
Les Finances de la Rev.fran.; Bailly, f Histoire financiere de la France 
On the influence of the financial crisis in general, see Clamageran, Histoire, 
dulmpot en France, III; Gomel, Les Causes financieres de la Revolution 
Frangaise {Les Ministeres de Tnrg-ot et de Necker); Viihrer, *■ Histoire de la 
Dette publiqne en Fra7ice, especially ch. 10. 

*The Statesman's Year-Book, 1900. 

^See Clamageran, Hist, du Im/'ot en France, 111, 465 seq., and De Tocque- 
vilfe, UAncien Regime, for fullest discussion. 



The Reform Movement 97 

been stated, the condition of the peasants, at least 
in nortliern France, was improving. The really seri- 
ous difficulty lay in the hopelessly confused adminis- 
trative system, with its duplication of officials and its 
useless officers, even more than in any attempt to force 
the privileged classes to pay their proper share of the 
taxes. 

The problem was complicated, also, by the heavy 
additional expense incurred by the ill-advised, though 
generous, war with England in aid of the American 
colonies. To meet these new demands, as well as to 
avoid a deficit, Necker had recourse to loans of vari- 
ous sorts. It was to prove a fatal policy, but at first 
it seemed a stroke of genius, for he was able to bor- 
row altogether something like one hundred and six 
million dollars on not unfavorable rates.^ But these 
loans were to be paid from taxes, and here the ques- 
tion of privilege was paramount. 

This Necker foresaw and endeavored to anticipate. 
Less impatient than Turgot, he went about his work 
cautiously, but with determination. In the interest of 
economy quite as much as of efficient administration, 
he reduced the number of the various treasurers from 
forty-eight to twelve, and reorganized the treasury 
department on a business basis. Up to this time, as 
the Count d'Artois naively said later, "the expenses of 
the king had not been regulated by the receipts, but 
the receipts by the expenses." Now the system was 

'Among these loans established by Necker were annuities. In estab- 
lishing these he disregarded all questions of age and health, and thus ex- 
posed the state to serious loss. Persons bought annuities for their children, 
and it is said that in i88s there were ten persons to whom the French gov- 
ernment was still paying annuities bought in or before 1786I Vuhrer, His- 
toire de la Dette pubLique, 272. 



98 The French Revolution 

reversed, greatly to the chagrin of the queen and her 
friends. Pensions were cut down twenty-eight million 
francs a year, and numbers of unnecessary officers in 
the king's household as well as in different adminis- 
trative departments were discharged. By way of 
increasing the income, he forced upon the syndicates 
who bought up the right of collecting the indirect 
taxes, new contracts which netted the state several 
million dollars of additional income. Nor was he so 
blind as not to see that the financial distress of the 
nation could be remedied only by improving its general 
condition. He favored allowing the provincial assem- 
blies to assess the taxes of their provinces, and he 
induced the king to manumit all serfs on the royal 
domains — an example followed by many of the nobility 
and clergy as a class. ^ It was due to his influence, also, 
that the hideous practice was abolished of torturing 
prisoners before their trial, although after their con- 
demnation it was still permitted.^ His plans went 
even further, and in a lengthy memoir sent by him 
to the king he proposed reducing the hated gabelle, or 
tax on salt, by destroying the monopoly in salt held 
by members of the court; to abolish the tax of the 
dhnej to increase the salary of the country curate to 
two hundred and forty dollars^ by appropriating some 

^There were 1,500,000 serfs in France, August 4, 1789. Bailly, Memoires, 
11,214. 

^Such a fact as this, indicating how accustomed the French people were 
to judicial cruelty, as well as the disregard of rights shown in the existence 
of thousands of imprisonments without trial by means of the royal lettres de 
cachet, go far to explain the cruel laws of the Revolution. In the same 
way the fact that Paris had no slaughter-houses and that cattle were slaugh- 
tered in the streets must among other things have gone far to brutalize the 
Parisian mob. (Thiebault, Memoirs^ I, 35.) Executions were public in the 
Place de Greve. 

^It was then less than $150. 



The Reform Movement 99 

of the large revenues of the higher clergy and religious 
establishments;^ to abolish the office of intendant; to 
restrict the Parlements to merely judicial duties, thus 
destroying their right of "registering" edicts. All 
of these proposals were wise, and could they have 
been once put into operation would have gone far 
toward the regeneration of the nation, but unfortu- 
nately some person stole and published the memoir 
before the king had given his decisions. Immediately 
all of the parties whose privileges were threatened 
united, under the lead of the Parlement of Paris, 
against Necker, and he was forced to resign. 

Just before he resigned, Necker issued his famous 
Compte Rendu^ or financial report, in which he so 
manipulated the accounts that the receipts of the state 
exceeded the expenses by about two million dollars.^ 
France now knew how many millions were going to 
the support of royal establishments, pensions, and 
sinecures. But this was not the most important result 
of this publication. The public, which had been 
given by Turgot the reasons for certain of his de- 
crees, now interpreted this act of Necker's to imply 
that the government had conceded it the right to 
know and advise about the national finances. The 
Compte Refidu was, accordingly, not only an interest- 
ing document; it was interpreted, more or less dis- 
tinctly, to be a step toward constitutional government. 
In this respect it was in some true sense what Boiteau 

^This proposition is interesting as anticipating the legislation of the 
Constituent Assembly. 

*This gratifying result was reached only by omitting the special expenses 
of the American war. In reality there was a deficit of about S23, 000,000 in 
1780, and of $16,000,000 in 1781. Gomel, Causes financieres de la Rev. Fran., 
510. Von Hoist, French Revolution, I, 104, makes the true deficit 219,000,000 
livres. 

L Of C. 



lOO The French Revolution 

has rather extravagantly called it, "the first revolu- 
tionary step France took." 

Two other facts of this short reform period are of 
importance. The American Revolution not only won 
French aid, but, as any reader of the Declaration of 
Independence can understand, it offered practical 
lessons to the French enthusiasts for liberty. Frank- 
lin, with his bland face, his unpowdered hair, his 
gray clothes, and his general patriarchal simplicity, 
seemed like the incarnation of the "natural man." 
We know well enough that Franklin was many 
removes from such a character, but such he might 
very well have appeared to the courtiers of Ver- 
sailles.^ But quite as much as Franklin, did the part 
played by French troops and officers in the American 
Revolution tend to give reality to the doctrines and 
ideals of liberty. Many of the most prominent mem- 
bers of the first Assembly had, like La Fayette, been 
in America, and had brought back to France a knowl- 
edge of republican simplicity and a desire to see pop- 
ular sovereignty embodied in French laws.^ 

The other fact to be noticed in these years is the 
growing hatred of Marie Antoinette. It is not diffi- 
cult to understand why this should have been the 
case. The queen was, first of all, an Austrian, and 
Austria had been for a century the foe of France. But 
this fact is not sufficient to explain the malignity 

'Thomas Jefferson, in 1791, declared that it appeared to him that "more 
respect and veneration attached to the character of Dr. Franlclin in France 
than to that of any other person in the same country, foreign or native," and 
the Constituent Assembly, at his death in 1790, ordered mourning for three 
days. Hazen, American Opinion of the French Revolution, 148, seq. 

''See also the preface to the American edition of Stephens, French Revo- 
lution, I, 



The Reform Movement loi 

exhibited in countless obscene pamphlets which began 
to appear in 1776, and continued despite all attempts 
at suppression — a most shocking testimony to the 
moral depravity of the Parisian public. For an ex- 
planation of such phenomena one must look further — 
to the indiscreet conduct of the queen, her frivolity, 
her attendance on public masked balls, her choice of 
friends,' her extraordinary talent for making enemies 
of persons in all classes, her extravagance, her prodi- 
gious love of gambling, and, perhaps as much as any- 
thing, her opposition to Turgot and Necker, and her 
known or rightly suspected share in the removal of 
each.^ 

Yet after all, France seemed more prosperous than 
for years, and even the clear-eyed Franklin, in all his 
nine years in France, seems never to have noted any 
tendency toward revolution. So true is it that pre- 
revolutionary periods are likely to appear full of pros- 
perity to those who share in that prosperity. 

'The Count de Dillon actually had his pocket picked under the eyes of 
the queen. 

'^The utterly baseless scandal of the Diamond Necklace greatly intensified 
this hatred. For the details of this extraordinary affair, see McCarthy, 
Frettch Revoluiioti, I, chs. 12-14; Carlyle, "The Diamond Necklace," Essays 
(Am.ed.), IV. 



CHAPTER VIII 

BANKRUPTCY AND THE CONVOCATION OF THE 
STATES GENERAL 

I. The Reinstatement of Abuse. II. Calonne: i. His Meth- 
ods; 2. Extent of His Borrowings; 3. His Return to Re- 
form. HI. The Assembly of the Notables: i. Reforms 
Approved by It; 2. Its Call for a National Assembly; 
3. The Fall of Calonne. IV. Brienne: i. His Struggle 
with the Parlement of Paris; 2. His Proposal of a Plenary 
Court; 3. New Constitutional. V. The Promise of the 
States General. 

The next day after his dismissal of Necker, Louis 
declared that "though he had changed ministers, he 
had not changed principles." None the less, as in 
the case of Turgot, the dismissal of Necker gave the 
court party the control of the state, and with it came 
a rehabilitation of abuse. Joly de Fleury, who suc- 
ceeded Necker, had hardly assumed ofilice when he 
considerably increased the tax on objects of consump- 
tion. A new loan of a million dollars was authorized 
to meet the wants of the king's brothers, the Count 
de Provence and the Count d'Artois^; new taxes were 
levied to carry on the war; the numerous receivers- 
general whose ofifices had been abolished by Necker, 
as well as the other officers he had dismissed, were 
reinstated. At the same time, in the face of the aid 

^The Count of Provence, commonly known as Monseigneur, became 
Louis XVIII., and the Count d'Artois, Charles X. They both were on 
dubious terms with Louis. 



Bankruptcy and the States General 103 

the army was giving the American colonies, and as if 
to emphasize its reaction from liberal sentiments, the 
government decreed that no person should become 
a captain whose family had not been noble for four 
generations — a decree most galling to the Third 
Estate. 

Opposition came from the provinces. The Parle- 
ment of Paris registered all the new decrees without 
hesitation, but the Parlement of Besangon refused, 
some of its members appearing in Versailles with bread 
made of oatmeal to show the distress of the peasantry. 
They met only reprimand and threats, however, and 
went back to register the tax for their district, but at 
the same time to demand for themselves their old 
provincial assembly and for the nation the States 
Geiie7'al^ or national assembly of the three estates 
(February 17, 1783).^ Other Parlements joined in the 
resistance to the new financial system, but found the 
ministry too strong for them. As a result, under the 
lead of the Parlement of Besangon, these bodies of 
magistrates began the formation of a sort of confed- 
eration, not so much to protect their ancient privi- 
leges as to "return to great principles" and to demand 
by a unanimous cry the States General. 

To all appearances, however, the ministry's policy 
was highly successful, and the royal family itself won 
favor by the birth of the dauphin.^ The king seems 
to have believed the time for economy to have passed 

^It is worth noticing- that this same Parlement, when the royal com- 
mandant of the town attempted to force them to register the edict, declared 
that "the king ruled by law, and that the men to whom he delegated his 
power were, like other citizens, obliged to respect law." 

'^This prince died in 1789. The unfortunate child known in Bourbon 
records as Louis XVII., who disappeared during the Reign of Terror, was a 
younger brother. 



I04 The French Revolution 

with the signing of the treaty with England in Sep- 
tember, 1783, and set about buying the palace of 
Rambouillet to save some of his friends from bank- 
ruptcy. Fleury had by this time been succeeded by 
D'Ormesson, but he was dismissed, and a thorough- 
going creature of the court, Calonne, was placed in 
his stead, the eighth administrator of finance in nine 
years. 

Calonne was for a few months the ideal of the 
thoughtless, reckless court ring, at the head of which 
stood the Polignac women, the bosom friends of the 
queen. His policy was that of the conscious bank- 
rupt: to gain credit, practice luxury. No insane policy 
was ever so rigorously followed. Economy, taxes, 
reforms were all thrown to the winds, and money was 
borrowed with absolute madness. For a few months 
the court reveled in a golden age. Even the poor 
were cared for generously, great public works were 
erected in various cities, agricultural prizes were 
established, and, in fact, every virtue seems to have 
had some gold medal endowed for its encouragement. 

And all this on the hollow foundations of debt. 
By 1786 Calonne had borrowed $130,000,000, the 
annual deficit was $25,000,000, the entire national 
income only about $82,000,000, and the interest-bear- 
ing debt over $600,000,000.^ But there are limits even 
to audacity, and the inevitable result overtook 
Calonne. He was borrowing to pay loans, he was 
anticipating taxes, and his resources began to fail. 
The national receipts were insufficient to pay the 

^The relative wealth of pre- and post-revolutionary France can be real- 
ized by recalling- that the annual budget of France is to-day about the same 
amount as this entire debt, though in purchasing value only about a third. 



I 



Bankruptcy and the States General 105 

running expenses of the government. The clergy, 
when asked for a gift of $4,000,000, gave only 
ij3, 600,000, and that on condition that the works of 
Voltaire should be suppressed.' The Parlements both 
of Paris and the provinces registered new loans only 
under protest, and Louis was increasingly obliged to 
adopt the arbitrary methods of Louis XV. Public 
confidence in Calonne himself vanished, and by the 
end of 1786 the subscriptions for his loans began to 
fall off. Thereupon he undertook a stamp tax on 
paper, music, carriages, and objects of luxury in 
general. He sold titles indiscriminately. And then, 
in despair of inducing Parlement to register any more 
loans, Calonne proposed to the king to call together 
the Assembly of Notables to consider reform in the 
taxes. "But that is Neckerism you are proposing!" 
said Louis. "Sire," said Calonne, "in the state of 
affairs, one can offer you nothing belter." 

And in truth at last, though too late, Calonne was 
to learn other things from Necker than the fatal art 
of borrowing. The programme of loans was to be 
abandoned and reform was to be again attempted. 
Necker's proposals for provincial assemblies, equaliza- 
tion of taxes among the three orders, the reduction 
of customs, the land and capitation taxes, and the 
abolition of the coi-ve'e — all these now were Calonne's. 
He even proposed to sell part of the royal domain, and 
• apply the proceeds to the public debt. And the 
Notables, the most prominent nobles, ecclesiastics, 
and magistrates, were to be summoned to approve this 

'The clergy plso wished the penalty of death inflicted on writers like 
Voltaire, but the king refused to listen to their proposals. 



io6 The French Revolution 

general scheme, and thereby reduce the opposition of 
court and Parlement.^ 

February 22, 1787, the Notables met in Versailles, 
to the number of one hundred and forty-five. Their 
sessions were held in seven boards, each presided over 
by a prince of the blood. To them Calonne unfolded, 
with charming self-confidence, his difficulties and his 
proposed reforms.^ Chiefly because of his unfortu- 
nate reputation, Calonne found little sympathy in his 
new assembly, although it was by no means lacking 
in liberal members like La Fayette. Through their 
influence, doubtless, the proposal for establishing 
provincial assemblies was approved without delay, as 
was the abolition of the corvee^ but the provisions 
looking for an equalization of privileges found foes as 
well as friends. The Notables were more concerned 
with learning the exact state of the finances than with 
new taxes. They even accused Calonne of peculation, 
and finally assured the king that the only basis upon 
which they could assist him was the removal of 
Calonne. The king, with characteristic weakness, 
tnefefore dismissed him, and even exiled him to 
Lorraine. 

In appointing his successor Louis would not listen 
to the popular cry for a recall of Necker, now the 
very god of the populace, but again following the 
wishes of the queen, appointed Calonne's arch-enemy 

'These sensible proposals are said to have been the work of Dupont de 
Nemours, Turgot's most prominent disciple and a correspondent of five 
kings. 

*A comic print of the times represents the meeting as an assembly of 
poultry before a farmer who makes to them this opening address: "Dear 
birds, I have assembled you to advise me what sauce 1 shall eat you with." 
A cock replies, "But we don't want to be eaten." Whereupon the farmer 
replies, "You wander from the subject." 



Bankruptcy and the States General 107 

in the Notables, an impossible man, Lomenie de Bri- 
enne. Archbishop of Toulouse. The new minister 
immediately proposed a loan of sixty million livres, 
promising an annual saving of forty million in the 
royal establishment. The Parlement, "touched with 
his beautiful promises," promptly registered the loan. 
The Notables, however, grew impatient of Brienne's 
insistence upon Calonne's further theory, "submission 
and taxation," and La Fayette even proposed that 
the king be asked to summon a National Assembly 
within five years. "What, Monsieur," cried the 
Count d'Artois, who was presiding at the time, "do 
you demand the convocation of the States General?" 
"Yes, Monseigneur, " replied La Fayette, "and even 
more than that!" 

But the affair went no further. Brienne easily dis- 
missed this anomalous representative body with a 
polite speech of congratulation upon its services, and 
on May 25th it vanished. Though it had had no 
legal status, it had done one great thing: as La Fayette 
wrote his friends in America, it had "helped the nation 
form the habit of thinking upon public affairs." But 
the Notables had really done something quite as 
important. Though clinging to the principle of 
privilege, they had sanctioned many of the reforms 
of Turgot and Necker, vicariously proposed by 
Calonne. 

But even here one does not see the greatest sig- 
nificance of this informal assembly. It was the publi- 
cation of the fact, presaged by Turgot's prefixing 
reasons to his edicts, and by the publication of 
Necker' s Compte Rendu, that the ancient French abso- 



io8 The French Revolution 

lutism was moving toward constitutional monarchy. 
It was as Mirabeau, already a man of importance in 
the literary world of politics, foresaw. The day of 
the Notables' meeting "preceded by but little that of 
the National Assero.bly. " 

The Assembly of Notables had no legal power, and 
before the reforms it approved could become laws it 
was necessary to submit them to the Parlement of 
Paris. Brienne certainly bungled matters; but as it 
was, the Parlement, no more than the Notables, made 
any difficulty over the institution of the provincial 
assemblies or the abolition of the corvee} 

The main questions at issue between Brienne and 
the Parlement were fiscal. Parlement would not 
register a stamp tax. It, like the Notables, preferred 
investigating the condition of the nation. The king 
bade it keep within its prerogatives, and register. 
The Parlement thereupon voted that for a permanent 
tax the States General should be summoned. The con- 
stitutional position was untenable, but the vote voiced 
a rapidly growing public opinion. The Parlement 
became instantly the idol of the crowd. It was a new 
role for it to play — it, the quintessence of privilege, 
now championing popular rights — and it grew some- 
what intoxicated, refused to register a decree looking 
to an improved land tax, as well as that establishing 
the stamp tax. Whereupon Brienne had the two 
decrees registered in a /// de justice^ and exiled the 
Parlement to Troyes. 

The exile of the Paris Parlement was followed by 

'One is astonished to find how glibly and frequently the men of these 
years used the word "revolution." On all sides it was apparently held to be 
synonymous with millennium. 



^1 



Bankruptcy and the States General 109 

resolutions of all the provincial Parlements calling for 
the States General, and complaining bitterly against 
the present helplessness of the one body having even 
a semblance of a constitutional check upon the ex- 
travagance and violence of the court. And this 
universal outcry, coupled with his need of funds, com- 
pelled Brienne to patch up a bargain with the Paris 
Parlement. In accordance with this, the Parlement 
returned to the capital, and registered a loan for 
eighty-eight million dollars; the vacillating govern- 
ment recalled the two tax edicts and promised that 
the States General should be summoned in four years. 

But the struggle still continued, the Parlement now 
refusing to register edicts and now passing decrees 
over the king's cancellations. Affairs grew desperate. 

Brienne and his counselors bethought themselves 
of the coup d' etat of Maupeou, and determined to sup- 
press the Parlement of Paris, or at least abridge its 
powers. In place of its having supreme registering 
powers, these were to reside in a plenary court com- 
posed of persons appointed by the king, while subor- 
dinate courts were to replace the Parlements of the 
provinces. But before this decree had been sent to 
Parlement, that body drew up a declaration of what 
it judged were the elements of the French constitu- 
tion. Chief among the propositions of this extraor- 
dinary document was the right of the nation to g?'ant 
subsidies through the States General. 

And here we see the evolution of theoretical nation- 
alism completed. As an historical statement the claim 
was impossible. For a hundred and seventy-five years 
taxes had been levied and paid without a thought of 



no The French Revolution 

the States General, and in point of fact they had been 
summoned only fifteen times since their first meeting 
in 1302. But as an expression of what the govern- 
ment of France ought to be if a people's political 
theory were to be realized, the statement was al- 
most the French Declaration of Independence. 

Brienne, it is true, used force and got his edict 
registered, but the storm it raised was too great for 
him. The Paris Parlement became the center of 
wildest popularity. Thirty thousand people, according 
to Jefferson, surrounded the Parlement house cheering 
its favorites. The great court of the Chatelet pro- 
nounced the edict invalid; the Parlement at Rennes 
declared any member of the new court "infamous" ; 
at Grenoble a mob of citizens rose to protect their 
magistrates against two regiments of soldiers, and the 
soldiers themselves, incited by the nobility, refused 
to fire upon ihe crowd ; in Dauphine the military com- 
mandant was plainly told he could not count upon his 
troops to execute the edicts. The very bishops pro- 
tested, and'demanded in their turn the States General. 
Abandoned by the clergy, disobeyed by the army, 
fought by the Parlements and the courts, hated by 
the nation, Brienne yielded, and resigned, through the 
queen's favor to be consoled by the money he had 
made and the gift of a cardinal's hat. But even be- 
fore this had happened, on July 5th, Louis had called 
on learned societies to tell him how the States 
General should be chosen and organized, and on 
August 8, 1788, by an order of the Council, suspended 
the Plenary Court, and convoked the States General 
for May i, 1789. 



PART III 

THE ATTEMPT AT CONSTITUTIONAL MON- 
ARCHY 



CHAPTER IX 

THE STATES GENERAL AND THE EVOLUTION OF 
THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY 

I. The Results of the Revolution thus far Noticeable. II. Dif- 
ficulties Confronting Necker: I. Bankruptcy; 2. The States 
General; 3. The French Character; 4. Agricultural Dis- 
tress. III. The Elections to the States General; i. Method; 
2. Difficulties. IV. The States General: i. The Deputies; 

2. Their Spirit; 3. Its Opening Session. V. The Evolu- 
tion of the National Assembly: i. The Struggle over the 
Voting; 2. The Organization of the National Assembly; 

3. The Tactics of the Court; 4. The Oath of the Tennis 
Court; 5. The Royal Session; 6. The Triumph of the 
Third Estate. 

"I think," wrote Thomas Jefferson from Paris in 
May, 1788, "that in the course of three months the 
royal authority has lost and the rights of the people 
gained as much ground, by a revolution of public 
opinion only, as England gained in all her civil wars 

General Literature in English.— A brilliant account of the States 
General and its evolution into the National Assembly is that of Carly^e, 
Fretich Revolution, bk. iv, ch. 4, bk. v, chs. i, 2. A very detailed account, 
with brief biographical sketches, is to be found in McCarthy, French Revo- 
lution, I, chs. 27-40. Other acounts are to be found in Watson, Story of 
France, II, ch. 8; Thiers, History of the French Revolution, 1, 35-52. 

The literature on the Revolution, even in English, is vast. Mignet, 
French Revolution, and Michelet, French Revolution, are almost classical 
hand-books. From the socialistic point of view are Gronlund, Ca Ira^ and 

III 



112 The French Revolution 

under the Stuarts/ And later he wrote that he 
believed that the nation, "within two or three years, 
would be in the enjoyment of a tolerably free con- 
stitution, and that without it having cost them a 
drop of blood." The same enthusiasm filled France, 
from the ignorant peasantry, who thought that they 
were "to be relieved of all taxes and that the first 
two orders would alone provide for all the needs of 
the state, "^ to Louis himself, who looked forward 
to the moment in which he should find himself 
"surrounded by the representatives of a generous and 
faithful nation. " To fill the cup of France's joy to 
the full, Necker, the very genius (so men thought) of 
finance and reform, was recalled. 

The financial problem which now confronted 
Necker was far more serious than that of his first 
administration. Bankruptcy had been seriously con- 

Bax, French Revolution. Watson's work is unconventional, not scholarly, 
but very readable. Van Laun, Revolutionary Epoch, presents the tradi- 
tional views. Carlyle's celebrated work is best read after one has gained 
some knowledge of the events. Stephens' History of tlie French Revolution 
is the best in English, but only two volumes (through the year 1793) have ap- 
peared. Von Sybel's voluminous work (4 vols.) is a mine of information, 
but could not have been intended to be read. Thiers is voluminous and not 
impartial. Taine, Tlie French Revolution, is brilliant, and furnishes infinite 
details, but is bitterly opposed to the Revolution. Good modern hand-books 
are those by Gardiner, Morris, Rose, Stephens {Revolutionary Europe'). 
The last three cover also the Napoleonic period. James Stephens' Lectures 
on the French Revolution , are among the best of the older literature. 

The early portion of the Revolution is profoundly discussed by Von 
Hoist, The French Revolution Tested by Mirabeati' s Career, and interestingly 
by McCarthy, The French Revolution. A very valuable collection of con- 
temporary American notes is to be found in Hazen, American Opinion of 
the French Revolution (Johns Hopkins Un, Press). 

'^Y{2i.z(tVi, American Opinion of the French Revolution, 30-34; Jefferson, 
Works, \\, 257, seq.; 469-70. The letters of Jefferson during these years are 
well worth considering quite as much from their mistaken as from their true 
judgments. That he should have favored every change of Brienne's admin- 
istration shows one of two things: either Brienne was not as weak as his- 
torians have pictured him, or the true path was so clouded that not even 
Jefferson could see it plainly. Mirabeau seems about the only man of clear 
vision during the period. 

^One is here reminded of the promises of Henry IV. of France, and of 
the Utopia expected by the negroes of the South when emancipation would 
give each of them "ten acres and a mule." 



Evolution of the National Assembly 113 

templated by Brienne, and as early as October, 1787, 
Arthur Young reports that the question was every- 
where discussed 'Vhether a bankruptcy would occa- 
sion civil war and a total over throw of the govern- 
ment. " ^ 

But another question confronted the redoubtable 
Genevese: How should the States General be elected? 
It is not without a humorous element, this mad race on 
the part of a nation after an Assembly that had been 
only a remembrance to the grandfathers of their 
great-grandfathers, and the despair of a king calling 
upon academies and savants to tell him how to get 
together the Assembly he had promised solemnly 
should meet on a certain day! But another difficulty 
confronted Necker, which neither he nor any person 
could successfully meet. And that was the character 
of the very people who clamored for liberty and the 
States General. Among the masses there was bru- 
tality, ignorance, and the 'utter absence of any great 
conservative ideals; among the courtiers there was 
little except frivolity, debauchery, delightful manners, 
and monumental selfishness; among the intellect- 
ual classes there was, it is true, great liberality of 
thought and elevated theories, but, though with many 
notable exceptions, little conservative morality, and 
much loquacious dilettantism. Despite his apprecia- 
tion of the rise of a liberal public opinion, and despite 
the results it had reached, Jefferson did not judge 

*The answer most commonly given was that such a measure would cer- 
tainly not occasion either, if conducted by a man of abilities, vigor, and 
firmness. But, as Young himself declared, tlie man was wanting among all 
the ministers, past or present. Gouverneur Morris noticed the same aston- 
ishing lack. "Gods," he exclaims, "what a theater this is lor a first-rate 
character!" Hazen, Avterican Opinion^ etc., 66, gives others of his opinions 
to the same effect. 



1 14 The French Revolution 

the nation in 1788 to be sensible of the value of trial 
by jury, or politically ripe to accept even the English 
habeas corpus law. "The people at large," he wrote 
Mrs. Adams in 1787, "view every object only as it 
may furnish puns and bon-mots; and I pronounce that 
a good punster would disarm the whole nation were 
they ever so seriously determined to revolt." As if 
there were not enough difficulties for any reformer, 
nature itself turned upon France. The harvest of 
1788 was fearfully damaged by a tornado, while the 
winter of 1788-89 was of unprecedented severity. 
The Seine was frozen for two months, the government 
had to maintain huge fires throughout Paris to keep 
the poor from freezing, while bread became so scarce 
that the bakers were allowed to sell only a small 
amount to any one person; and even among the rich, 
guests were expected to bring their own bread to 
dinner. As a result of this distress, the peasants 
grew desperate, and thousands flocked to the cities, 
and especially to Paris, there to swell the brutal 
proletariat. 

To advise as to methods of electing the States 
General the Notables were again summoned, but with* 
out satisfactory results, and Necker was left to his 
own devices. As a result, there was issued, January 
24, 1789, an Order in Council providing that the States 
General should consist of one thousand members, one 
half of whom should be from the Third Estate, the 
other half to be drawn equally from the two other 
orders. This double representation had been given 
the order by the king "because its cause was allied 
with generous sentiments, and would always obtain 



Evolution of the National Assembly 1 15 

the support of public opinion. " Although the number 
of deputies was later increased, the proportions 
remained the same. The order provided also that the 
unit of election should be the bailliage^ or county, and 
that each bailliage should elect a number of deputies 
to the States General proportionate to its population.^ 
A system of election was devised more complicated 
than that by which American citizens elect their Presi- 
dent. When one recalls that this was laid upon a nation 
ignorant of the most rudimentary processes of repre- 
sentative government,^ that in addition to the regular 
deputies alternates had also to be chosen, and that at 
each stage of the electoral process instructions, or 
cahiers^ had to be drawn up to be forwarded to the next 
electoral body, the wonder is that the elections could 
have been conducted at all. As it was, all the provinces 
were by no means content to'a^optthe prescribed plan, 
and in some cases, notably that of Brittany, were so 
vehement in their opposition that special decrees had 
to be issued in their behalf. It is indeed hard to see 
how the electoral process could have been carried 
through had it not been for the invaluable advice 

'The method of election of the delegates from the two upper orders was 
simple. The noblesse and clergy, with feudal holdings, met in the electoral 
assembly of every bailliage, in which they owned fiefs and elected their depu- 
ties. The curates could also appear at the electoral assembly and vote in 
person. It was this fact that gave the States General such a large propor- 
tion of curates among the clerical deputies. They had simply outvoted the 
bishops at the electoral assembly of the bailliage. Far more cumbersome 
was the method prescribed for the Third Estate. The towns and villages 
elected delegates to the electoral assembly of their bailliage. Those thus 
elected met at the appointed place and reduced themselves to one-fourth 
their original number, and this one-fourth elected the deputies to the States 
General. But even this process was complicated in cities, where ancient 
guilds elected representatives to the town electoral assembly, which in its 
turn elected delegates to the electoral assembly of the bailliage. 

'Brienne, it is true, had attempted to inaugurafe provincial Assemblies, 
whose members should, in the process of time, be elected, but the edict had 
not been given sufficient time and trial to vitiate the statement in the text. 



ii6 The French Revolution 

given all parts of France by the Assembly of Dauphine, 
of which Jean Joseph Mounier was president. 

The personnel of the body thus elected, though 
good, was by no means extraordinary. It is impossible 
to give the exact number there present, but the most 
likely figures are these : The clergy, 308 ; the noblesse, 
285, and the Third Estate, 621. It will be seen, there- 
fore, that the number of the Third Estate was greater 
than that of the other two combined. The temper of 
the Assembly was, on the whole, liberal. Of the 308 
clergy, though the bishops were well represented, 205 
were curates. Two shades of political faith were 
represented in the ranks of the nobility; there was 
the liberalism of La Fayette, and the obstinate con- 
servatism of "Barrell" Mirabeau, the brother of the 
count. Of the 621 delegates who composed the Third 
Estate, two-thirds were lawyers or legal officials — 
a most important fact; many of them, also, were 
scholars. Only ten of them can possibly be consid- 
ered as belonging to the lower classes. It will be seen, 
therefore, as a whole that the States General repre- 
sented the well-to-do classes. It was not in the least 
an uncultured rabble, but was made up of the best 
blood in France.^ 

The desires of this highly intelligent body are to 
be found in overwhelming detail in the cakiers, or 
instructions, which their constituencies had given 
them. From these it appears that, on the whole, each 

^Accounts of this election are given in Stephens, The French Revolution, 
I, ch. i; Taine, French Revolution, I, bk. i; McCarthy, French Revolution, 
I, ch. 24; Cherest, La Chute de f Ancien Regime, II (very detailed). The 
original material will be found in the Archives Parlementaires ; Bouchez et 
Roux, Histoire Parlementaire ; and in the Moniteur (original), introductory 
volume. 



Evolution of the National Assembly 117 

of the three orders was anxious to give the state 
reforms, and may very fairly be considered as desirous 
of embodying in some form of constitution the spirit 
which had forced Louis and his ministers to summon 
the body.' So far as revolution is concerned, it is 
evident from many facts that the States General 
regarded a revolution as already in progress, and con- 
sidered itself as its product rather than its first step. 
Mirabeau has left the statement that "there was not 
one commoner who did not come with very moderate 
sentiments to the National Assembly." 

In nothing was the incompetence of Necker more 
clearly shown than in his refusal to decide in advance 
whether the new body should vote, as in 1614, by 
order or by member. The question was more than 
parliamentary. To vote by order i^par ordre) was to 
maintain only a sort of corporate representation, in 
which the doubled membership of the Third Estate 
would have but one vote to the privileged orders' two; 
to vote by member i^par tete) was to establish true 
representation and to give France a genuine national 
assembly, in which the Third Estate might outvote 
the other two. 

Throughout the spring of 1789 the newly elected 
deputies began to arrive in Versailles, where those of 
the Third Estate, at least, would have suffered at the 
hands of extortionate landlords had the government 
not established legal rates. On May 4th, amid the blare 
of trumpets, along streets lined with rich tapestries 
hanging from windows crowded with spectators, the 

*A good summary of these cahiers is given in Lowell, Eve of the French 
Revolution, and are treated in detail in Chassin, Les Cahiers. They are 
printed in full in the Archives Parlementaires, 1-VI, 



1 1 8 The French Revolution 

delegates of the three estates marched in procession 
to the Church of St. Louis, to attend mass and listen 
to an eloquent sermon.^ The newspapers of the day 
contain elaborate directions, drawn up by the royal 
master of ceremonies, as to how the deputies should 
dress and march. First went the Third Estate, in 
black clothes, white neckties, and three-cornered 
black hats (which were to be inexorably buttonless) ; 
then the nobility, with their gorgeous court dress (the 
Duke of Orleans, the enemy of his cousin the king, 
ostentatiously walking ahead of his order, close to 
the last of the commoners); then the higher clergy, 
in magnificent pontificals; then the curates, a mass of 
somber black; and last of all the king and the court. 
A grand spectacle — but what were they all to do? 
Save France, fervently thought they, and the king, 
and Necker. But how? And so far as one can dis- 
cover, not a soul among the twelve hundred saviors 
knew. 

Incredible as it appears, Necker was just as igno-, 
rant.^ This the first meeting of the body showed, when 
Monday, May 5th, it gathered in the Salle des Menus, 
which had been splendidly prepared to receive it. 
With elaborate and, to the commoners, exasperating 
formality, the delegates found their places. After 
a couple of hours' delay the king took his seat upon 
a throne covered with fleur-de-lis. As the great meet- 
ing became silent, he arose and delivered a well- 
intentioned speech, which was received so cordially 
that Gouverneur Morris felt tears start from his eyes 

^Though it is true he seems to have had some fantastic notion of arrang- 
ing the nobles and the clergy into an upper and the Third Estate into a 
lower house. 



Evolution of the National Assembly 119 

in spite of himself.' He was followed by the Master 
of the Seals, who succeeded in showing the genuine 
willingness of Louis for moderate reforms, and 
in saying that the nation was in debt, and that the 
States General had been assembled to see that it was 
got out of debt. Necker then read, or caused his 
clerk to read, a speech which contained much infor- 
mation and "many things very fine," but was three 
hours long. In fact, he bored everybody, and so 
much less interested was he in reforms than in the 
deficit that he disappointed every liberal. But the 
king went back to his palace thoroughly content, cer- 
tain that the end of his difficulties had come. 

When the States General assembled on May 6th to 
hold its first business session, it was at once con- 
fronted by the question as to whether the voting was 
to be par ordre ox par tete. The difficulty first appeared 
in the necessity of verifying the delegates' credentials. 
The nobles proceeded at once to verify as a separate 
chamber, the vote standing 188 to 47; while the 
clergy, though voting 133 to 114 to verify as an order, 
did not proceed to organize as such. This attitude 
of the two orders was a legitimate outcome of the 
Old Regime. The fraction of a great people which 
had enjoyed where others had lost privileges, was 
now endeavoring to block all reform by continuing to 
oppose itself to the nation. It was the last ditch in 
which monopoly could fight. But the Third Estate 
refused even to verify credentials until it had been 



'Gouverneur Morris says that when Louis sat down he put on his hat 
nobles did the same, and so did sor 
: them off again. Then Louis took hi 
to account. Morris thought the t 
there, but says he cannot "swear to this. 



The nobles did the same, and so did some of the commoners, though they 
took them off again. Then Louis took his off. Whereupon the queen took 
him to account. Morris thought the two discussed the matter then and 



I20 The French Revolution 

decided that the three estates were to meet in one 
indivisible assembly. May nth it declared itself 
simply a collection of citizens without organization, 
without credentials, without legal existence.^ For 
weeks both sides obstinately sought to win over the 
other, and compromise became every day the more 
impossible. Business evidently was out of the ques- 
tion under such conditions, and May 28th the king 
interfered, commanding the three estates to verify 
separately. But matters had gone too far for such a 
command to be obeyed. Mirabeau moved to invite the 
clergy "in the name of the God of Peace" to join the 
commons. The curates wavered. Introduced by Mira- 
beau, Sieyes, the framer of nearly every constitution 
that France had during his life, on June loth, moved 
that a committee inform the clergy and the nobles that 
the Third Estate summoned them for the last time; 
that on the next day its members would begin to verify 
not as an estate, but as the representatives of the nation. 
The clergy wavered still more. On June nth the 
process of verification of these self-styled representa- 
tives of the nation began. Two days later the curates 
began to come over. On June 17th, the slowly 
swelling company of commoners and curates adopted 
the name National Assembly, and France, if only French- 
men would recognize it, ceased to be under the control 
of absolutism. 

But all Frenchmen could not see it, and there began 
a struggle of the National Assembly for its existence. 
It is not difficult to understand the opposition of the 

^The first speech of Mirabeau the Af<9«/7<f?^r reports is on May 5th, oppos- 
ing even the appointment of a committee for conference with the nobles. 



Evolution of the National Assembly 121 

nobility. The court party could not see into the 
future, but could see in all the actions of the Third 
Estate supreme presumption. They applied to the 
king, and persuaded him to undertake to bring about 
by force what they had not been able to accomplish 
by argument. Had they been content with this plan, 
they would have made a sufficiently great mistake, 
but blindness and insolence hurried on that which 
they had too little foresight even to fear. 

Their method of warfare was worthy of their fri- 
volity. On the 20th of June, when the Third Estate, 
or National Assembly, came to its hall it found the 
doors closed and guarded by troops. Notice for the 
first time was then served upon it by the master of 
ceremonies that there was to be a special royal session 
on the next day but one, and that the hall must be 
closed for the accommodation of the carpenters. 

It was a clever plan, but it miscarried. The com- 
moners marched to a great building in the neighborhood 
of the palace — a public tennis-court, standing yet, in 
a back street in Versailles, at once the Runnymede 
and the Independence Hall of France. There, in the 
unfurnished room, amidst intense excitement, with 
upstretched hands they solemnly swore never to 
separate until they had drawn up a constitution for 
France.^ 

Yet to the king and the court all this was but 
a name and a joke. Third Estate or National 
Assembly, Salle des Menus or tennis-court, it was all the 
same. The commoners must yield. On the 23d of 

^The oath and its signatures are still to be seen in the archives of 
France. See for full discussion, Fling, "The Oath of the Tennis Court," 
in Nebraska University Studies, II, No 3 (Oct. 1899). 



112 The French Revolution 

June the royal session was held. In the meantime 
one hundred and forty-nine of the clergy had joined 
the National Assembly. This in itself was enough to 
confirm its independent spirit, but the vain, stupid 
malice of the court party hastened events. The com- 
mons, when they came to the royal session, found the 
hall surrounded by soldiers, and were forced to wait 
in the rain until the other estates had been granted 
admission. Even if they had forgotten Maupeou and 
Brienne, events could well suggest a c(?uj> d'etat. The 
nobles expected a ready if unwilling submission. The 
king commanded the estates to separate, and to meet 
in separate chambers and there deliberate. He 
emphatically asserted his determination, in case of 
hopeless disagreement between the three orders, to 
carry on the work of reform alone. He further 
declared that all reform should leave the army, feudal 
dues, and the tithes untouched. The session was an 
illustration of the character and policy of Louis. From 
the time he dismissed Turgot he was always behind 
events. Such strong words might perhaps have done 
six weeks before, but since the coming of the clergy 
the union of the orders was inevitable. To prevent 
it was to attempt the impossible. 

Instantly the new position of the Third Estate, or 
the National Assembly, was apparent. The king left 
the hall. The nobility and a part of the clergy retired 
to their chambers. The commoners remained in their 
seats. It was an act of disobedience. Breze, master 
of ceremonies, said, "Messieurs, you have heard the 
king's orders. " It was one of the few critical seconds 
in history. To leave the hall would have been to give 



Evolution of the National Assembly 123 

up all claims of representing the people; to stay meant 
disobedience of the king's express command and 
probable punishment. The deputies wavered. But 
just at this moment Mirabeau arose, and in his tre- 
mendous voice addressed the master of ceremonies: 
"Yes, Monsieur, we have heard what the king has said; 
but do you, who cannot be the interpreter of his orders 
to the States General ; do you, who have right neither 
to be here nor to speak here — do you tell those who 
sent you that we are here by the will of the people, 
and that we will not leave our places except at the 
point of the bayonet."^ Thunderstruck Breze left 
the room and the huge Mirabeau, as he was accustomed 
to leave the king, backward. 

But the position of the commoners had become 
critical. They were no longer mere reformers; they 
were rebels. They had deliberately disobeyed the 
command of the king. Immediately, upon motion of 
Mirabeau, they voted by an overwhelming majority 
that the persons of the members of the National 
Assembly were inviolable, and proceeded to business as 
before. For a day or two, it is true, it looked as if the 
Assembly might be crushed by soldiery. But Louis, 
good-natured and vacillating, was no man to keep up 
a struggle, and within four days after he had com- 
manded the estates to vote par ordre^ he had com- 
manded the two upper estates to unite with the third 
and to vote par tete. They, more obedient than the 
commons, yielded, though with protests, one noble, 
it is said, assembling for weeks quite by himself. On 

'There are various versions of this story, but they seem to agree in the 
main facts here given. The precise words of Mirabeau are also hopelessly 
lost, but not their general sense. 



124 The French Revolution 

the 27th of June the union of the three estates was 
complete. The States General had vanished, and in 
its place had arisen the National Constituent Assem- 
bly, the first truly representative body that France had 
ever known. And this new assembly had had its ori- 
gin in disobedience to the king, had voted its members 
inviolable, had taken solemn oath to give France a 
constitution. Without a leader and without a pro- 
gramme could it evolve an efficient government, and 
would the king and court recognize its self-determined 
powers? In the answer given by events to these ques- 
tions lay the future of the movement so auspiciously 
begun. 



CHAPTER X 

THE UPRISING OF THE MASSES^ 

I. The New Coup d' Etat Planned by the Court: i. Paris and 
the Parisians; 2. The Plans of the Court; 3. The Dismissal 
of Necker. II. The Search for Arms. III. The Surrender 
of the Bastille: i. The Bastille; 2. The "Capture"; 3. The 
Subsequent Lynchings, IV. The Effect and Significance 
of the Fall of the Bastille: i. The First Emigration; 2. The 
New Institutions; 3. Uprisings throughout France; 4. The 
Rise of the Nation. V. The Impotence of Government. 

The development within the sphere of constitu- 
tional government did not represent the only phase of 
the revolution through which France was consciously 
and exultingly passing. In closest union with it was 
the upheaval among the masses. For years discon- 
tent had been working in France, and at times had 
been with great difificulty suppressed. Yet the masses 
had as yet been of no very great influence in the new 
movement. That they should now assert themselves 
was due to the collapse of absolutism and the conse- 
quent impotence of the government, but more spe- 
cifically to a second attempt on the part of Louis and 
the court to suppress the National Assembly. And 
this within a week after the failure of the blustering 
royal session of June 23d. 

'On the fall of the Bastille, see Stephens, French Revoluiion, I, ch. 5; 
McCarthy, French Revolution, I, chs. 42-46; Watson, S/ory of France, II, ch. 
10; MicheJet, History of the French Rezwhdion (Bohn ed.), 132-160. For 
complete treatment, see Dussaulx. De r Insurrection Farisienne et de la 
Prise de la Bastille, and Bond. La Prise de la Bastille. See also the mass 
of original material in Archives Parlementaires, and Moniteur (reprint), 1. 

125 



126 The French Revolution 

There had been disorder throughout the country 
from the time the States General had been summoned, 
but, though the expression of hatred of ancient 
abuses and capable of almost any growth, it was not 
of sufficient importance to call for more than men- 
tion. For the first emergence of truly revolutionary 
violence one must look to Paris. 

Paris in 1789 was by no means the beautiful city of 
to-day. Its streets were narrow, crooked, and dirty. 
Its population was without community of spirit and 
its government was inefficient and venal. During the 
past few months of want it had attracted crowds of 
beggars and desperate men from all parts of France, 
and its lower classes were incomparably brutalized. 
Order had been kept with difficulty, and the fatal lack 
of the police force of a modern city was evidenced in 
the impunity with which a mob could sack a great 
establishment like that of the papermaker Reveillon 
(April 27, 1789). Morris may have looked on its char- 
acter with too puritanical eyes, but his words are cer- 
tainly explicit: "Paris is perhaps as wicked a spot as 
exists. Incest, murder, bestiality, fraud, rapine, 
oppression, baseness, cruelty, are common." Yet 
there was no place in all France where the new philos- 
ophy had struck so deep or had grown so radical; 
and the priests of the new cult, the apostles of the 
newly discovered rights, were the journalists. 

Never was there such a turbulent flood of pam- 
phlets and newspapers and books. ^ Good-natured, phil- 
osophical, agricultural Arthur Young was astonished 
at it. On the 9th of June, 1789, he went into the 

'The Revolutions de Paris had a circulation of 200,000. 



The Uprising of the Masses 127 

Palais Royal, the rendezvous of booksellers, travelers, 
newsmongers, and scamps, to procure a catalogue of 
the new publications. He discovered that every hour 
produced something new; thirteen had come out on 
the day of his visit, sixteen on the day before, and in 
the preceding week ninety-two.^ These political 
tracts, he discovered also, found their way throughout 
all the country. And nineteen-twentieths of all these 
publications he declares were in favor of liberty, and 
were commonly violent against the clergy and the 
nobility. If journals were suppressed, they appeared 
under a new name. Never was there a greater evi- 
dence of the power of inflammatory journalism. Paris 
was not only full of patriotic enthusiasm and the 
champion of the Assembly; it was fairly alive with 
reformers, agitators, demagogues, and fanatics, and 
in consequence increasingly was the prey of that 
insane suspicion which seizes a community that is 
superficially full of wit, but fundamentally is im- 
moral. 

It was to such a city that there came rumors 
that the king and the court were attempting to 
use the army to crush completely the new Assembly, 
now barely a fortnight old. Just what these rumors 
were we cannot now decide, but we know enough 
to be sure that in general they must have been cor- 
rect. For barely had Louis accepted the Assembly 
than, coming again under the influence of the queen 
and the court, he determined to destroy it. Abso- 
lutism, the court, privileges, all things were as before 
the meeting of the States General, and Marie Antoi- 

'One publisher issued 1,500 pamphlets and books in two years. 



128 The French Revolution 

nette and her friends would have been farsighted 
indeed if they had seen the real significance of the 
mimic war between the orders at Versailles. France 
had seen many disorders, and the monarchy had 
always been able to crush opposition. It is easy to 
see why a new coup d'etat should be planned. 

The plan was simple. Marshal de Broglie was 
ordered secretly to gather troops and surround Paris 
and Versailles. Necker was to be dismissed, the troops 
were to move in upon the National Assembly, and then 
all things were to be as they had been before the meet- 
ing of the States General. By the ist of July the plan 
was ready for execution. Strange uniforms began to 
appear in the streets of Versailles, and the troops for- 
merly stationed far away, on the frontiers or in other 
cities, rapidly gathered about Paris. July nth the 
royal mine was sprung. On that day, as Necker was 
sitting at dinner with friends, a sealed letter was 
brought him; he broke the seal, and without a change 
of countenance read the letter's contents, folded it, 
put it in his pocket, and continued his conversation. 
It was a command to leave France immediately. 
Without a word to his servants, without even telling 
his daughter his plans, he started off the same after- 
noon in his coach for the frontier. On the next 
day the news was brought to Paris. Camille Desmou- 
lins, one of the most brilliant of the Parisian journal- 
ists, plunged into the motley crowd at the Palais 
Royal, leaped upon one of the tables, and shouted 
that Necker had been dismissed, that his departure 
was the St. Bartholomew's bell of patriots, that on 
that very evening the Swiss and the German battal- 



The Uprising of the Masses 129 

ions were to march from the Champs de Mars to 
slaughter all patriots. "There is not a moment to 
lose," he cried; "we have but one resource — to rush 
to arms, to wear cockades whereby we may know each 
other. What colors shall we wear? Will you wear 
green, color of hope, or the blue of Cincinnatus, the 
color of the liberty of America, and of a democracy?" 
"Green! green!" the crowd shouted. Camille bound 
a green ribbon on his hat, the crowd pulled green 
leaves from the trees, and rushed out to gather arms. 

As we look back upon it, we can see the alarm 
was well grounded. A day more and the Assembly 
would have been in prison or in exile, Paris in the 
hands of the troops, France again in the hands of an 
irresponsible master. 

It was a wild night in Paris, that night of the 12th 
of July, 1789. The city officials were powerless to 
keep order. The French Guards, the natural police, 
fraternized with the people. Mobs of the lowest 
characters went howling up and down the streets, loot- 
ing the gunsmith shops, the bakeries, and the taverns; 
the city was practically without government, in the 
hands of a populace half-demented with one of those 
panics to which it was subject. The troops were at 
the doors, the city was to be starved into submis- 
sion, and the people of Paris were without arms! 

By degrees a semblance of order returned. The 
shopkeepers of their own accord armed themselves 
and began to patrol the streets. The electors of the 
city, who had but just met to elect the deputies to 
the States General, extemporized a provisional gov- 
ernment, and began to organize a volunteer force, the 



130 The French Revolution 

National Guards, for the defense of the city and the 
maintenance of order. July 13th was passed in com- 
parative quiet, but the revolutionary leaders, and 
especially the agents of the Duke of Orleans, were 
preparing for a great demonstration. On the morn- 
ing of July 14th the tocsin called the National Guard 
and the mob alike to the streets. The gates of the 
city were closed, and the mob, which now included 
men of all classes, took up its mad search for arms. 
But arms were hard to get. Flesselles, the provost of 
the merchants, restrained the crowd momentarily by 
deception, but the news soon came that there were 
arms in the Hotel des Invalides. A few of the mob at 
the same time began to shout that there were others 
in the Bastille. The crowd divided, some surging 
thither, others starting off toward The Invalides. 
There the governor attempted to deceive them. In 
vain. They broke into the great building, ransacked 
it, took every musket and sword they could find in 
the boxes in the cellar, in the stands in the guard- 
houses, or in the museum itself. At last they were 
partly ready to meet the soldiers of De Broglie. The 
news came that though there were arms in the Bastille, 
they had been refused the defenders of the city. And 
so away went the crowd to the eastern part of the 
city, and gathered about the grim old castle-prison. 

Originally the Bastille had been built just outside 
the city as a sort of castle, after the fashion of the 
Tower of London, to control the always uneasy 
populace. But as time passed, the city had grown 
about it, and it had ceased to be a fortress and had 
become the state prison. Within its dungeons had 



The Uprising of the Masses 131 

been confined nearly every famous man France 
had produced, from Voltaire, for daring to challenge 
a noble, to Gabriel Riquetti Mirabeau, for not mind- 
ing his irascible old father. Strange stories were 
told of dungeons far below the surface of the ground, 
into whose foul air no ray of light ever came, where 
men lived through generations not knowing whether 
wife and children still lived; of nameless tortures; of 
mysterious bones, by accident discovered by workmen. 
It is true we know to-day that few abuses attended the 
use of the Bastille during the reign of Louis XVI., and 
that its prisoners had been granted no small liberty, 
but the populace of Paris believed otherwise, and the 
great building had become the very symbol of oppres- 
sion. 

But hated though it was, and full of arms though 
it might have been, not a man of the crowd that rap- 
idly gathered about its gates believed the Bastille could 
be captured. How was an unorganized mob, armed 
only with muskets and swords and pikes, to get over 
two drawbridges, and scale walls ten feet thick and 
ninety-six feet in height? Yet as the crowd filled the 
streets in the east end of Paris, swollen by additions 
from the lowest class of men as well as the artisans; 
as the governor, De Launay, refused to deliver up 
arms, the thought of capturing the huge building began 
to suggest itself. But how? One worthy locksmith 
declared, in the good old Roman fashion by the cata- 
pult. Monsieur Caussidiere, major-general of the 
Parisian militia, declared that it must be taken by 
siege. Santerre, a rich brewer, leader of the wild 
men from St. Antoine, planned to pump turpentine 



132 The French Revolution 

and phosphorus from the fire-engines and set it on 
fire.' 

Despairing of taking the place by storm, the crowd 
turned to deputations. A committee from the elec- 
tors spent three hours in the fortress, but accomplished 
little. About ten o'clock in the morning, a single 
man, Thuriot de Larosiere, was admitted into the 
Bastille to speak with the governor. Unable to 
speak a word of German, he yet harangued the few 
Swiss soldiers who formed the garrison till they posi- 
tively trembled. He told De Launay, in the name of 
a nation, to remove his cannon. De l^aunay promised 
that the cannon should not be used upon the people. 
Thuriot, coming out, begged the people to wait. But 
even as he was speaking the tragedy began. To 
enable Thuriot to pass, the drawbridge had been let 
down over the moat that separated the people from 
the outer coujt of the castle. The unarmed crowd, in 
search for weapons, rushed over it and stood in the 
so-called governor's court, just under the walls of the 
fortress. For some unknown reason the drawbridge 
was raised behind them. And then De Launay's men 
fired. Why, we shall never know. 

Were it not for the white stones in the Place de la 
Bastille, outlining the building's great towers, were it 
not for the great bridges that span the Seine, whose 
stones once made the walls of. that ancient prison, 
one could hardly believe that a people without 
cannon should have been able to capture a fortress, 
and that within a day. Yet capture is hardly the 

^The pumps were actually brought, but unfortunately there was neither 
enough turpentine nor power in the pumps to carry half way up the sides 
of the building. 



The Uprising of the Masses 133 

correct word. The Bastille was not taken; it surren- 
dered. A wild firing, it is true, was kept up upon the 
building from roofs and street and square, but the 
defenders behind the thick walls suffered little. The 
situation of De Launay was by no means desperate. 
It is true some of the troops who should have dis- 
persed the crowd were among his besiegers. But he 
had promises of help from Versailles, and he had but to 
wait a few hours. But his troops grew mutinous, and 
demanded that the impregnable building should 
surrender. De Launay was in despair. Rather than 
surrender, he determined to blow up the fortress, but 
was prevented, and then, in new despair, he yielded 
to the demands of his troops. The drawbridge of the 
castle was let down, the crowd rushed in, and the 
Bastille had fallen! 

It is a pity that the story cannot end here, and yet 
as we look back upon it we see that it is hardly pos- 
sible. A mob that had seen eight hundred and 
thirty-seven of its members apparently trapped and 
then shot down in cold blood; that had for hours 
been gathering to itself the scum of the slums; that 
had for hundreds of years been taught license in 
brutality and violence by the very building it had 
captured, could not let this victory pass without 
bloodshed. Hardly had the Swiss been taken from 
the walls than the promise of preserving their lives 
was broken, and an indiscriminate slaughter began. 
The bodies were horribly mutilated; the heads were 
placed upon pikes, and were carried in triumph by the 
howling crowd to the city hall. De Launay himself, 
in the midst of what protectors he could gather. 



134 The French Revolution 

started toward the same place, but before he had 
reached a refuge the mob surged in upon him, beat 
him to the ground, and in a moment his head also 
was on a pike. The other deaths that followed need 
not be spoken of. The murders of Flesselles, Foulon, 
and Berthier were but the work of a half-crazed mob 
meting out 'Hhe justice of the people." The best 
men — and there were best men in the crowd that took 
the Bastille — had nothing to do with such actions. 
The murder of these men made it plain that in Paris 
on the 14th of July, 1789, the passion of the Parisian 
mob, be it never so bedecked with fine phrases, was 
brutal and anarchic, pregnant with every evil. 

The fall of the Bastille was something more than 
the fall of a disused but hated prison. If one will go 
to the Museum Carnavallet in Paris he will see a host 
of mementos which testify to something more than 
a passing delirium. There are locks from the Bastille, 
doors from the Bastille, models of the Bastille made 
from its own masonry; Bastille fans, handkerchiefs, 
porcelains, pictures. And if one will read the 
memoirs of the time, he will find all Europe cele- 
brating the event — Englishmen orating, Russians 
hugging one another, Germans weeping for joy. The 
explanation of all this enthusiasm lies in this: the fall 
of the Bastille was the symbol of the fall of Bourbon 
absolutism, the sign of the rise of a nation. For this 
reason is it that the 14th of July has been added to 
the list of national birthdays. 

More immediately, also, the fall of the Bastille had 
important results. The coup d'itat of the court party 
was ruined. Necker was recalled. The Count 



The Uprising of the Masses 135 

d'Artois and the Polignac women fled from France. 
Large numbers of the court clique followed their 
example, and thus there came about the "First Emi- 
gration." The Due de Liancourt was the first to 
break the news to Louis. "Why," said the king, 
"this is a revolt!" "No, your Mcijesty, " replied the 
duke, "it is revolution." The king was startled into 
action. He recognized the assembly of the electors 
as the government of Paris, and the astronomer Bailly 
as mayor; he legalized the National Guard and placed 
La Fayette in command. He himself — for Louis had 
courage — partook of the sacrament and went to Paris, 
There he was received with honor by the new govern- 
ment of the city,^ and, as a token of his good inten- 
tions, put on a red, white, and blue cockade.^ 

Other results were less happy. The discontent and 
violence that had appeared sporadically and locally 
throughout France, suddenly grew persistent and 
universal. The people rose through the country. 
Every place to which the news of the 14th of July 
came emulated the capital by attacking its local Bas- 
tille, the house of the feudal lord. Whether or not the 
riots were instigated by the Duke of Orleans, who 
was anxious to force Louis to abdicate, that he might 
be regent, will never be known certainly, although 
Orleans was undoubtedly capable of such a policy. 
But with whatever aid, the abused peasants turned 
upon their hereditary oppressors. The flogging of 
salt-agents, the extortion of the tax-gatherers, the 

'It was while receiving Louis at the city gate that Bailly. who had been 
elected the first mayor of Paris, uttered the famous words, "Henry IV. recon- 
quered his capital; now the capital has reconquered its king." 

'^The red and blue were the colors of Paris, and white was the color of 
the Bourbons. 



136 The French Revolution 

miseries of the frog-marshes, all the horrors of feudal 
tyranny, were paid back stroke upon stroke. Yet it 
must be added that these uprisings were less violent 
where the peasantry was the more prosperous, and 
were sometimes directed against the custom-houses, 
and in general were less against the feudal lord than 
against feudal privilege. Often if a seigneur delivered 
up the books containing the records of the feudal dues, 
violence was avoided. But anarchy none the less 
reigned, and the ignorant masses went demented. 
July and August were months of the "great fear." 
Plots were suspected on all sides — brigands were 
always on the point of breaking in upon one's town or 
village; huge royalist syndicates were being formed 
to starve the people into submission by raising the 
price of grain; the Duke of Orleans was hiring ras- 
cals to terrify the people into loving him; royalists 
were blowing up patriotic citizens at lawn parties.^ 

If it be asked why the king and his ministers did 
not use military force and crush out this anarchy, it 
must be replied that there was no army to be trusted 
by the king. Throughout France the garrisons 
refused to obey royalist officers, and even De Broglie 
fled to Germany. And if it be asked why the 
Assembly did not check these disorders, the only reply 
can be that the Assembly neither had the ability nor 
the desire to use force. It was concerned with reduc- 
ing the Rights of Man to formulas. 

Thus in July, 1789, the two wings of the revolu- 
tion united, the masses to reform by destruction, the 

Hn one case it was charged that this was actually done by one Mesmai 
at Vesoul, but the investigating committee of the Assembly reported with- 
out even raising such a suspicion. 



The Uprising of the Masses 137 

National Assembly by political philosophy. In the 
meantime Louis hunted, the court emigrated, the 
ministers did nothing, Necker passed sleepless nights 
in writing financial statements, and the Assembly, to 
use Mirabeau's words," spent months over syllables." 



CHAPTER XI 

THE END OF THE OLD REGIME^ 

I. The Fourth of August, 1789. II. New Problems. III. The 
Removal of the King to Paris: i. Marat and the New 
Popular Leaders; 2. The Fifth and Sixth of October, 1789. 

The fall of the Bastille and the attendant disorders 
throughout France were by no means the only impor- 
tant facts of the early months of the Revolution. 
Others are to be found quite as truly in the doings of 
the Assembly, which since the defeat of the court 
party was left to effect, without fear of violence, those 
reforms upon which France was determined. Nor 
should it for a moment be supposed that the Assembly 
was indifferent to public disorder. Yet its interests 
were more theoretical than administrative, and it con- 
tented itself with appointing a committee to report 
upon the condition of the nation. 

While this committee was making its investiga- 
tions, the Assembly devoted itself to drawing up the 
constitution it had sworn in the tennis-court to pro- 
duce. It was a slow process, made all the more 
difficult by the lack of parliamentary procedure and 
the habit of delivering set speeches of indefinite 
length. First of all, came the question as to whether 

*In general see Stephens, French Revolution, I, ch. 7; McCarthy, French 
Revolution, II, chs, 13-20; Taine, French Revolution, I, bk. i, ch. 4; Thiers, 
French Revolution, I, 80-114; Von Hoist, French Revolution, II, ch. 7. 

138 



The End of the Old Regime 139 

or not there should be a declaration of rights pre- 
fixed to the constitution. Deciding in the affirm- 
ative, the Assembly debated for weeks the matter 
of the rights of man and the citizen, meanwhile 
allowing the country to govern itself. Its passion 
for philosophical generalities quite unfitted the Assem- 
bly for legislation. Its members were masters of 
sentimental politics, but quite incapable of instituting 
reforms in such a way as to guarantee public peace. 
When abuses were destroyed, the very reform threw 
the country into deeper disorder. On the 4th of 
August the committee on the state of the nation 
reported, and a sad enough report did it make. 
Chateaux were burning all over France, millers had 
been hanged, tax-gatherers drowned, warehouses and 
depots of the salt trade burnt. It was evening when 
the report was finished, and the Assembly listened at 
first in a sort of stupor to the terrible facts. Then 
enthusiasm amounting almost to hysteria seized its 
members. The liberal party had found its oppor- 
tunity. Vicomte de Noailles rushed to the tribune. 
"What is the cause of the evil which is thus agitating 
the provinces?" he cried. It was, he showed, the fact 
that the people were uncertain whether or not the 
old feudal demands were still in force, and were deter- 
mined to see that they were uttqrly destroyed. As 
one of the privileged orders, he proposed to abolish 
all feudal rights. His motion was seconded by 
D'Aiguillon, next to the king the greatest feudal lord 
in France, and passed in a frenzy of self-sacrifice. 
Noble after noble arose and proposed the abolition of 
their privileges. Rights of chase, rights of dovecote, 



T40 The French Revolution 

rights of tithes, special eligibility to office, all fol- 
lowed each other into oblivion. Many nobles beg- 
gared themselves in their enthusiasm. The clergy 
vied with the nobles. Decrees followed for the equal- 
ization of penalties; freedom of employment; the 
abolition of feudal justice, customs at the frontiers of 
the provinces, guilds, pensions and salaries, special 
privileges of towns and provinces, serfdom and mort- 
main.^ And to crown it all, in an outgush of loyalty, 
Louis, who had been ignorant of the whole affair, 
was voted the Restorer of French Liberty! 

To understand the significance of the night of the 
4th of August it is necessary to remember that the 
Revolution is marked by a series of stages. The first 
period was not so much political as economic and 
social. The only attack was upon the relics of feudal- 
ism, not upon the state. The National Assembly 
aimed not at destroying the monarchy, but the 
unjust privileges under which France had so long 
suffered. And this first period culminated on the 
4th of August. It is true hysterical legislation is 
always inexpedient. Sober thought, elementary par- 
liamentary rules, would have prevented some of 
the decrees of that night. But even when all allow- 
ance is made, this much stands true: that hostility 
to privilege for which Turgot and Necker had 
stood unavailingly was converted into laws within 
a few hours. From that day to this France has never- 
known a revival of the accursed condition that existed 
under the Old Regime. It makes little difference 

^Compensation, however, was granted for certain of these privileges. 



The End of the Old Regime 141 

whether we say that the 4th of August destroyed 
privileges or simply declared them destroyed ; in either 
case it outlawed them. And with them the Old 
Regime as a whole was outlawed. It is a pity we can- 
not say that it was dead and buried, but actually it 
was simply outlawed, and, like all outlaws, its hand 
was against the law that drove it forth, and its hopes 
lay in the undoing of the good work the Revolution 
had thus far accomplished. 

During the few months following the fall of the Bas- 
tille, the local institutions of the Old Regime rapidly 
disappeared throughout the provinces. It was not 
merely that the peasants turned liberty into license.^ 
In despair of protection from the regular army, the 
bourgeoisie organized spontaneously in companies of 
National Guards, into which went most of the militia. 
Gradually these National Guards throughout the 
country grew afifiliated. Thanks to this new military 
force, order was partly restored, but this very success 
deepened the hatred of the insurgent peasantry; and 
in Dauphine the struggle between the National Guards 
and the peasants amounted to civil war. In the towns, 
also, there was disorder; but a vigorous council, like 
that of Rouen, had no difficulty in suppressing riots 
and punishing their leaders. When the old local 
governments proved inefficient, new permanent mu- 
nicipal committees, composed largely of members of 
the bom-geoisie, sprang up, and as in the case of the 
National Guards, these improvised governments were 
soon in correspondence with each other. These new 

'Arthur Young says a man's life was in danger from the number of peas- 
ants out gunningi 



142 The French Revolution 

organizations were wholly independent of the Assem- 
bly, and illustrated not only the readiness with which 
the middle classes broke from the Old Regime, but 
also show how thoroughly nationalized the revolu- 
tionary spirit had become. 

The problem of the workingman in the cities, 
however, had not been solved by the decrees of the 
4th of August, nor had that of universal poverty. In 
fact, the Assembly was little concerned with such 
matters, questions of vested privilege and natural 
rights not being involved. Yet in the ignorant, hun- 
gry, half-frenzied proletariat of each city the bour- 
geoisie^ which had destroyed the feudal and monarchi- 
cal institutions, was to find its most inveterate enemy. 
As a matter of practical politics, the masses, intoxi- 
cated with the crudest ideas of liberty, should not 
have been neglected by the reformers; and this over- 
sight on the part of the well-to-do deputies furnished 
the opportunity for radically democratic leaders, like 
Marat and Danton. The middle-class legislation of 
the National Assembly was to be followed by the 
ultra-democratic class legislation of the Jacobin 
period. 

Thus the important elements in the revolutionary 
movement became distinct: the court, the Assembly, 
the bourgeoisie^ the peasants, the masses of the cities, 
and especially the populace of Paris. For the 
moment, however, these were represented by two 
bodies, the Assembly and the court, each wishing to 
control the king. Had France in July, August, and 
September, 1789, been possessed of a strong govern- 
ment, quiet might have been restored, and the dark 



The End of the Old Regime 143 

days which were to follow might have been avoided. 
No mistakes had thus far been committed that a 
strong administration might not easily have corrected. 
The Revolution in August, 1789, deserved the enthusi- 
asm it universally aroused; its only dangers lay in 
the undoing of its work. And this could be brought 
about only by its own indiscretions or by the success 
of the court. 

As we look a little closer at France, it is evi- 
dent that while it was likely that in its enthusiasm for 
humanity the Assembly might neglect administration, 
the danger from the court party was imminent. It 
would not have been human nature for persons who 
once had been possessed of all privileges to relinquish 
them immediately, because some of their fellows had 
been overtaken by a passionate generosity. And so it 
came about that from the 4th of August until the 
court party finally disappeared in the overthrow of 
the monarchy three years later, the history of the 
Revolution became a struggle between the parties of 
i-evolution and counter-revolution. Louis himself 
grew increasingly useless; but had the court — or let 
us say more accurately, had the queen — been able to 
see things exactly as they were, had she been ready 
to make use of La Fayette and Mirabeau, the two men 
who could and would have helped her, much conflict, 
much misery, might have been spared. But instead, 

«e queen grew the more bitter in her opposition to 
e liberal movement, and events went on at Ver- 
sailles much as before the flight of the king's friends; 
forgetting the effects of their first attempt, the court 
party began to plot a new coup d'etat. 



144 The French Revolution I 

Their projects were not well hidden, and the popu- 
lar leaders of Paris determined once and for all to 
bring the king away from the influence of the court, 
and establish him in his palace in Paris, where he 
would be a hostage against royalist attacks. Further, 
it was thought that if the Assembly were only in Paris 
it might be induced to come down from the thin air 
of deductive politics and consider the vulgar but 
more essential matter of the price of bread. Such 
a plan evidently involved many difficulties, for not 
only must the king be persuaded that such a 
transfer was necessary, but some energetic action 
must be taken to counteract the programme of the 
court party. And here, for the first time, we meet 
that use of the Parisian mob which later became so 
characteristic of the extreme revolutionists. 

Since the fall of the Bastille, France, and especially 
Paris, had given birth to revolutionists far more ready 
than the deputies to champion the masses, and also 
to a rank sort of agitators, most of whom owned or 
edited journals. Chief among these latter was a 
Doctor Marat, a master of six languages, who had 
barely missed being elected a member of the Royal 
Academy of France, had been the court physician 
of the Count d'Artois, had achieved considerable 
reputation as an authority on light, electricity, and 
diseases of the eye, and the list of whose scientific pub- 
lications fills three octavo pages. ^ Marat's interest in 
the masses was worthy of all his apologists say for 
him; but if he were a Wilberforce in theory, he was a 

'Marat had one volume crowned by the Academy of Rouen, and another 
"approved" by the Royal Academy. 



The End of the Old Regime 145 

Nero in method. Before his assassination by Char- 
lotte Corday in 1793, his mind weakened, his influence 
waned, and his demands for heads can hardly be 
regarded as anything more than half-maniacal ravings. 
In 1789, however, he was of rapidly increasing impor- 
tance, notwithstanding he was on bad terms with 
La Fayette. He was possessed of a profound pity for 
the populace, a vast talent for suspicion and denunci- 
ation, a passionate hatred of the aristocracy; and all 
of these traits he reduced to type in one of the most 
eccentrically bloodthirsty sheets the world ever saw, 
L'Ajni du Peuph} 

Marat^ was soon to find his opportunity. On the 
ist of October a portion of the new troops which 
had been summoned by the court arrived, and the 
officers of the body-guard at Versailles gave a supper 
in honor of the regiment from Flanders. The news of 
the arrival of this regiment, of course, was known in 
Paris, and served to arouse the worst apprehen- 
sions of the Parisians, and these apprehensions were 
turned into frenzy by the reports which came of the 
banquet. The agitators seized upon this orgy, as 
they called it: Paris was starving while the court was 
feasting; the red-white-and-blue cockades of the 

Ut is perhaps worth noticing that though he believed De Launay, Fou- 
lon, and Berthier worthy of death, he denounced their lynching- as a viola- 
tion of justice and an outrage of nature. It might be added that several of 
the worst numbers of his journal were forgeries issued by his eneuiies. 
During the last twelve months of Marat's life sixty-four persons had been 
guillotined. Not one of them had been denounced or mentioned by him. 
See Bougeart, Marat, II,28j seq. 

^On Marat see Stephens in the EncyclofxEdia Britajinica and French 
Revolution, I, 216-219. The traditional view of his character is that of 
Michelet, French Revolution (Bohn ed.), 535-551. His great apologist is 
Bougeart, Marat, P Anii dii Pcuple, and his most laborious and appreciative 
biographer is Chevremont, Marat, Esprit politique. See also Bowen Graves 
in Fortnightly, 1S74, 2, and for socialist judgment, Bax, Marat; also in 
Gentleman' s Magazine, New Series, XIX, 572. 



146 The French Revolution 






people had been trampled under foot; the royalist 
song, "Richard, My King," had been sung by officers 
as they pledged health to the queen. Marat now 
comes into special prominence. On the 4th of Octo- 
ber he seems to have gone to Versailles, and upon 
his return, Paris began to seethe. If the men 
had learned to respect the prowess of the National 
Guard, the women of the lowest classes, especially 
the market-women, had not. In accord with the 
plans of the agitators, whose tools they were, 
the women, and men dressed as women, collected 
themselves in different parts of the city, formed 
rude troops, impressed every woman they met, and 
began to march toward the City Hall. Companies 
of the National Guard — not those composed of bour- 
geois, but of men of the old army, who had been 
overtaken by the prevailing spirit — were drawn up to 
oppose them. "You will not fire upon women," they 
said, and threw themselves upon the soldiers' necks. 
As if in an opera bouffe, the soldiers capitulated. A 
quick-witted man by the name of Maillard, seeing 
that the women were capable of all mischief if left 
in Paris — they were just about to hang an unlucky 
clergyman — placed himself with a drum at the head of 
the procession, and led it away from the city towards 
Versailles, promising the women bread. It was a 
wild procession, this of the women, shouting, starv- 
ing, mad with the wildest of revolutionary deliriums. 
A modern city would have dispersed it in short 
order, but when La Fayette succeeded in gathering 
the National Guard, he found his troops were bent 
upon bringing the king to Paris. Either sincerely or 



The End of the Old Regime 147 

for the sake of appearances, La Fayette endeavored 
to procrastinate; the soldiers were polite but deter- 
mined, and at last the general, probably not quite 
unwillingly, put himself at the head of another pro- 
cession and also marched to Versailles. 

It is a good eight miles from Paris to Versailles, 
and when the crowd of hungry women reached the 
palace it was ready for sleep or for riot. It surged 
into the astonished and not altogether pleased Assem- 
bly,^ demanding that the price of bread be low- 
ered by law, and then, after sending a deputation to 
the king, found its way into the great court of the 
palace. For a few hours the situation, if critical, was 
not hopeless. Some of the crowd were drunk, and 
others attempted to satisfy hunger by roasting a horse 
that had chanced to be shot. At last La Fayette 
arrived with his troops, and after disposing them in 
churches for the night, thinking all was quiet, retired 
to get a few hours' rest after twenty-four of constant 
exertion. His fatigue can hardly excuse his negli- 
gence, for as day broke, under what provocation it is 
not known, the mob broke into the palace, and 
made for the queen's apartment, apparently bent 
on murder. Two of the Life Guards were thrown 
out of the windows to the greater mob below, 
where in a second their heads were off and on pikes. 
The queen was aroused just in time. Heroic guards, 

*The Assembly played a curious role in the affair. The women crowded 
the galleries and told the deputies to " shut up,'' and shouted for " Mother 
Mirabeau." The president of the Assembly, Mounier, headed the deputa- 
tion to the king, and in his absence one of the women sat in his chair. In 
the mean time some of the royalist deputies were flirting with the best- 
looking of the crowd. The desperate attempt of the Assembly to maintain 
its dignity can hardly be appreciated without reading the account of its 
proceedings in the Moniteur ox the Archives Parlementaires. 



148 The French Revolution 

at the risk of their lives, kept the inner doors of the 
palace closed until she went by a private staircase to 
the apartments of the king. This violence, however, 
was of but short duration, for La Fayette was able to 
bring about a return of order by means of his troops, 
and the wild night came to something like peaceful 
morning. 

When morning came, the king appeared on the 
balcony, and was enthusiastically cheered when he 
promised to go to Paris. La Fayette led the queen 
and the dauphin upon the balcony, that the crowd 
might see her with a cockade in her hand. "No chil- 
dren!" howled the crowd, and the queen bravely stood 
out alone with the general. La Fayette gave her the 
tricolor cockade, bent and in the most chivalrous 
way kissed her hand. The crowd was pleased, and in 
a way subdued, and a few hours later Louis, with the 
queen and the children, started for the capital, never 
again to return to the grand palace of Louis XIV. 

It was a third and wildest of all the proces- 
sions of these two days' — women, men, body-guards, 
troops, La Fayette on his white horse, and the people 
from the slums surrounding the royal carriage, howl- 
ing, "We have got the baker, and the baker's wife, 
and the baker's little boy. Now we shall have 
bread." And so they came to Paris and the shabby 
palace of the Tuileries. 

The Assembly at Versailles, instead of acting like 
men, and punishing the authors of this shameful affair, 
yielded to mob law, voted that the king and the 

lit is commonly said that the heads of the two murdered guards were 
borne on pikes in front of the carriage. La Fayette expressly denies this in 
his Memoirs. 



The End of the Old Regime 149 

Assembly were inseparable, and in its turn went to 
Paris. Quarters were prepared for it in one of the 
great riding-schools of the town, close by the royal 
palace of the Tuileries, and at last the capital had 
the king and the National Assembly in its own control. 
It was the guarantee that the Old Regime should not 
be restored. 

La Fayette and the bourgeois government of 
Paris (Commune) were the immediate gainers by the 
transfer of the Assembly to Paris. The Duke of 
Orleans was driven to England, the Commune 
repressed popular uprisings, and La Fayette, for the 
moment the most powerful man in France, with the 
aid of the National Guard, brought something like 
quiet into the excited capital. 

But the more sinister fact cannot be overlooked. 
Whether willingly or not, the municipal government 
of Paris, the commander-in-chief of the National 
Guard, the National Assembly, the king, had all been 
for the moment conquered by the proletarian mob, 
directed by demagogues. The end of such a triumph 
Mirabeau alone saw, and through La Marck, his friend 
at court, he urged Louis to leave Paris and establish 
himself and the Assembly in some smaller and more 
friendly city. The advice was timely but unheeded, 
and both Louis and the Assembly remained in a city 
not only suspicious, but naturally inclined to violence 
and brutality. 



I 



CHAPTER XII 

THE REORGANIZATION OF FRANCE* 

I. The Parties in the Assembly: i. The Extreme Right; 2. The 
Right; 3. The Center; 4. The Left; 5. The Extreme Left, 
n. Mirabeau. IIL The Work of the Assembly: i. The 
Weakening of the Executive; 2. The Finances; 3. The 
Church; 4. The Military; 5. The Judiciary; 6. The Legis- 
laturco 

The events of the 5th and 6th of October were 
followed by more than two years of at least outward 
comparative quiet. Yet no years of the Revolution 
were more critical and resultful. It was then that 
the constitution was produced ; it was then that, as real 
government collapsed, the bourgeoisie lost its control of 
public opinion, and the entire nation came under the 
influence of radicals supported by the proletariat; and 
it was then that the forces were accumulated that 
made France a republic. 

Before it is possible to understand the course of 
debates and executive decrees that resulted in the 
short-lived constitution of 1791, it is necessary to con- 
sider the parties in the Assembly. Their origin can 
be seen in the numerous differences in principles and 
interests that characterized the deputies, but their 
first real appearance was due to the debates over the 
purely constitutional question as to whether or not the 

*In general, see Stephens, History of the French Revolution, I, chs. 8, 9, 
10; Von Sybel, French Revolution, 1, bk. i, ch. 5; bk. ii, ch. 3; Von Hoist, 
French Revolution, II, ch. 7. 

150 



1^^ 



The Reorganization of France 1 5 1 

king should have the power of vetoing the acts of the 
Assembly. They were named from their position in 
the great Assembly hall in relation to the president. 
The Extreme Right, or Reactionist party, was com- 
posed of a hundred bishops and a few nobles. The 
nobility's leaders were D'Espremesnil and the brother 
of the great Mirabeau, called, from his capacity to 
hold liquor, "the Barrel," while the leader of the 
bishops was the Archbishop of Aix. The party of 
the Right numbered from 200 to 250, and was com- 
posed of moderate men who favored a constitutional 
monarchy after the style of England, and was led by 
Mounier and Malouet until they were forced to 
resign their charge to abler hands. In the center of 
the hall sat about half the Assembly, who were prac- 
tically neutral, and voted with either Right or Left, 
but were especially liable to be influenced by popu- 
lar clamor. The Left was the most active division of 
the Assembly. It was composed of about the same 
number of delegates as was the Right, and included 
most of the young nobles who had served in America. 
Its most noted men were Sieyes, Talleyrand, La Fay- 
ette, but by the end of 1789 its leaders in the Assem- 
bly were Dupont, Lameth, and Barnave, the "trium- 
virate." Its plan was to cut loose from the past and 
at the same time maintain the monarchy. On the 
extreme left of the speaker sat a small body of 
radicals, completely under the influence of the philos- 
ophy of Rousseau. Chief among them were Robes- 
pierre, Petion, and Buzot, all of whom were later to 
be of first importance. They had, however, little 
power within the Assembly, and turned to the clubs. 



152 The French Revolution 

Besides these five parties, there was a single person 
who, belonging to neither, was yet the only man in 
the entire body who seemed capable of seeing things 
as they actually were, Mirabeau. 

Gabriel Honore Riquetti Compte de Mirabeau' 
was by all means the most important character in the 
first years of the Revolution, though less for what 
he accomplished than for what he attempted. His 
early years^ had been made miserable by his own dissi- 
pations and his father's spectacular discipline. 
Throughout his life he was licentious, extravagant, 
and destitute of anything like ordinary moral consis- 
tency. Yet so vast was his nature that it would be 
incorrect to think of him as untrustworthy or utterly 
without moral principles.^ There were, in fact, two 
Mirabeaus, the great animal who came into the 
Assembly with face still bleeding from the leeches his 
dissipations had made necessary, and the orator and 
statesman, the implacable enemy of anarchy and 
privilege, who swayed a hostile Assembly or club 
with his eloquence while, with Cassandra-like accu- 
racy, he foretold the fatal results of mistakes he was 

*The great works on Mirabeau are Lom^nie, Les Mirabeau, and Stern, 
Das Leben Mirabeaus. In English, the best study is that of Von Hoist, 
The French Revolution Tested by the Career of Mirabeati. In addition, see 
Willert, Mirabeau, and the essays by Carlyle, Macaulay, and Reeves {Royal 
and Republican France) . An interesting sketch is that of McCarthy, French 
Revolution, I, ch. 29. A sidelight upon the pre-revolutionary importance of 
Mirabeau is given by Fling, "Mirabeau and Calonne in 1785," Am. Hist. 
Assoc, 1897, 131. 

^The pre-revolutionary career of Mirabeau (1774-1789) cannot, unfor- 
tunately, be here considered, yet it was of sufficient importance to make 
him a leading factor in the development of the revolutionary spirit. See 
especially Fling, " Mirabeau, an Opponent of Absolutism," in Nebraska 
University Studies, II, No. i (July, 1894); " Mirabeau a Victim of the Lettres 
de Cachet,'' Am. Hist. Rev., Oct., 1897. 

^La Fayette himself gives him the credit of being true to his highest 
ideals for the nation, even when receiving a pension from the king. 



The Reorganization of France 153 

unable to prevent. Unfortunately the two men were 
inseparable, and the better was hopelessly handi- 
capped by the worse. So notorious were his marital 
affairs and his relations with his father that he was 
\iissed when he first entered the States General, and 
he seems to have been suspected by all parties. 
None the less, his opposition to absolutism, his recog- 
nized ability as a writer upon all subjects of political 
importance, as well as his striking personality, had 
given him preeminence, and his boldness at the royal 
session and, far more, his speech in September in 
favor of Necker's proposed income tax gave him 
undisputed preeminence. He of all the deputies 
perceived how much reform was possible. Bitterly 
opposed to the Old Regime, he saw that France was 
incapable of republican government, and consequently 
wished only to change absolutism to constitutional 
monarchy. But his clear vision availed France 
almost nothing. Despite his increasing influence 
with the people and his position in the Assembly, he 
was neither able to induce La Fayette — whom he 
dubbed Cromwell-Grandison — to unite with him nor 
to form a coterie of followers. It is at this point 
that the chief criticism must be passed upon his polit- 
ical career. In large measure, it is true, this failure 
was due to the selfish, narrow spirit of the men to 
whom he appealed, but this is not the complete 
explanation; for if Mirabeau had the insight of the 
statesman, he too little trusted the organizing 
methods of the politician. His relations with the 
Assembly, on the whole, might almost be reduced to 
this: the Assembly did what Mirabeau knew it should 



154 The French Revolution 

not do, and left undone the things that Mirabeau knew 
it should do. 

The meetings of the Assembly were hopelessly 
disorderly. Mirabeau had laid before it a trans- 
lation of Romilly's rules governing the House of 
Commons, but the Assembly wanted no aid from 
England. Instead of a few men meeting, like the 
Convention that drew up the American constitution, in 
secret, twelve hundred men discussed constitutional 
articles before three galleries filled with excitable 
crowds. Further, the presiding officer was changed 
every fortnight. Genuine debate there was little or 
none. A member had often literally to fight his way 
into the tribune, and once there he shouted and 
declaimed. At any minute the Assembly was liable 
to be swept off its feet by some passion. In the 
midst of a discussion on a national bank, excitable 
deputies took off their silver knee-buckles and threw 
them upon the table as a present to the state. Visit- 
ors and petitioners were always received. The pro- 
ceedings were stopped to welcome a speech-making 
crowd of children, a newly married priest, or a liber- 
ated serf from the Jura a hundred and twenty years 
old. At one time the Assembly was fairly beside 
itself with enthusiasm as it received Baron von 
Clootz, who marched in at the head of a troop of men 
dressed like different nations, all come to salute new 
France in the name of the human species. H 

Yet through all confusion the Assembly kept stead- 
ily at its work of producing a. constitution for new 
France. Here it was confronted by another difficulty. 
It rapidly assumed executive powers, and like the 



The Reorganization of France 155 

second Continental Congress of America, was con- 
fronted with the double problem of producing a con- 
stitution and governing a distracted country. It was 
a fatal union, all the more inexcusable on the part of 
the Assembly, since it might have had the benefit of 
America's experience. Still another mistake did this 
overtaxed body make: it put its constitution into 
effect piecemeal. As fast as an article was adopted 
it was put into operation, and thus administration 
was misled by political metaphysics and constitutional 
provisions were precipitated by the desperate condi- 
tion of the country. It is, in fact, impossible to dis- 
cuss the constitution without at the same time consid- 
ering the entire reorganization of France. 

The fundamental principles which animated the 
Assembly need not be again set forth. They were 
carefully codified in the "Declaration of Rights of 
Man and of the Citizen" prefixed to the constitution, 
and embodied that teaching as to liberty and equality 
philosophers had popularized.^ From any point of 
view the time spent upon this declaration might bet- 
ter have been spent upon more practical matters; but 
considering the unwieldy size of the Assembly, its 
disregard of parliamentary procedure, and its inexperi- 
ence, one must admit that it might have done less, if 
not worse. As regards fundamentals, its work has 
never permanently been undone. Its destructive 
legislation was practically that imposed upon it by 
the cahiers of its members, and so far it was the true 
expression of the new spirit of the nation. It was in 

'For example, liberty of the individual, security of property, safety of 
one's person, right to resist oppression, freedom of speech, of publication, 
and of religion. 



156 The French Revolution 

accord with its principle of equality that free people of 
color were admitted to equal rights with whites, that all 
titles of nobility were abolished, and that an effort was 
constantly made to reverse the conditions of the Old 
Regime — often, indeed, to an altogether unwarranted 
extent, as in the matter of taxation of the land and 
the support of the proletariat by means of public 
workshops. 

But dread of a continuance of absolutism was quite 
as influential as love of equality, and from the outset 
the Assembly was determined to weaken the power of 
the executive. Mirabeau and a few of the more sen- 
sible deputies were anxious for the king to have a veto 
power over the acts of the Assembly, but the populace ; 
and the great mass of deputies believed that to give \ 
him such power would be to make themselves "slaves ; 
again. "^ Under the influence of Necker, an unfor^ ; 
tunate compromise was effected, by which the king was ! 
given a "suspensive veto," in accordance with which ' 
he could veto a bill, but if it was passed by the two : 
legislatures following that by which it was presented ; 
it became a law.^ Nor did the Assembly restrict itself 
to political theory. The executive department of the 
state had continued as before the States General, the 
ministers carrying on the various bureaus. Necker, 
though at the height of his popularity, was growing 
daily more incompetent, and the only two men of 
actual power were La Fayette, because of his com 
mand of the National Guards, and Mirabeau, because 



:i 



^The public, who had never heard the word veto before, were thus enlight- 
ened by their leaders: "You are eating your soup. The king comes along 
and knocks the bowl from your hands. That is a veto." 

'Sec. ill, art. 2, Trlpier, Consiiiutions qui ont regi la France depuis ij8g. 



The Reorganization of France 157 

of his position in the Assembly, Paris, and the prov- 
inces. Evidently the sensible plan would have been 
to form a coalition ministry, of which La Fayette and 
Mirabeau, if not Necker, should be members. This 
Mirabeau attempted, and in the face of the suspicion 
of the court and the supercilious attitude of Necker 
and La Fayette, nearly accomplished. But the Ex- 
treme Right and the Extreme Left were bitterly jeal- 
ous of him; the less radical deputies were hysterically 
individualistic and in terror of "slavery"; and the 
eyes of the entire Assembly were closed to the need 
of anything except general principles. As a result, 
in its determination to maintain its independence dur- 
ing the time of constitution-making, the Assembly 
voted (November 7th) that no deputy should be 
allowed to receive office from the king. This decree 
was directly aimed at Mirabeau, and it resulted in 
ruining every possibility of his becoming a minister. 
With this exclusion disorder was guaranteed,^ and 
unwittingly the deputies had destroyed the monarchy, 
and had made strong government in France possible 
only under terror. 

More beneficial, but hardly less doctrinaire^ was the 
constitutional provision for the administration of the 
nation. The provinces and intendances were abol- 
ished, and France was divided into eighty-two (or 
eighty-three including Corsica) departments, each 
divided into nine districts, each district into ten can- 
tons, and each canton into ten municipalities.^ The 

^Mirabeau repeatedly urged the king to bring about the repeal of this 
fatal vote, but to no purpose. It is generally believed that its passage was 
due to the influence of Necker and La Fayette. 

'These were the ideal numbers. Actually there were 83 departments, 
574 districts, 4,730 cantons, 44,000 communes. 



158 The French Revolution 

department and each of its subdivisions were to have 
their proper officers, each to be elected, the electoral 
process being very elaborate.^ Each department was 
to have at its head a procureur-general-syndic^ each 
district a procureur-syndic^ each canton and depart- 
ment a procureur. Each division had also its appro- 
priate judiciary. Each commune, or town govern- 
ment, further, had charge of its own companies of the 
National Guard, and in other ways exercised really 
sovereign powers. In its reaction from Bourbon 
centralization the Assembly had practically destroyed 
all national government, and broken France up into 
little democracies. But this was not all ; every officer, 
judge, and council in every administrative division 
was to be elected, and any citizen who did his duty 
must needs appear every few weeks at the polls. The 
bourgeois influence was also felt, for citizens were 
divided into two classes, the active — i. e., those who 
paid taxes equal to three days* wages; and the 
passive, or those who did not pay such tax. The 
franchise was limited to the active citizens, and a con- 
siderable property qualification was set for all officials. 
Thus in theory the responsible citizens were in control 
of the state. In fact, few persons were really refused 
the franchise, and the property qualification became 
only a source of class hatred. The great powers this 
administrative system would give a municipality, and 
especially a great city like Paris, are at once evident. 
Its commune would be a practically independent gov- 

^The officers of the municipality and canton were to be elected by the 
active citizens of the municipality and canton, respectively; but the officers 
of the district and department were to be elected by an electoral college 
chosen by the citizens of the department. 



The Reorganization of France 159 

ernment, controlling its own troops, more than able 
to confront the officers of the department to which it 
belonged, and certain to demand special recognition 
from the Assembly. 

The financial expedients of the Assembly were, on 
the whole, temporizing and injurious. From the first 
it had faced the financial problem unwillingly, but 
the deficit was growing steadily, and on August 7th 
Necker informed the Assembly that practically no 
taxes had been collected for three months.^ He 
wished the Assembly to sanction a loan of $6,000,- 
000 at five per cent, for which he had made provi- 
sion. The Assembly sanctioned the loan, but blindly 
changed the rate to four and one-half per cent. The 
loan consequently was not taken up. Three weeks 
later Necker attempted to float a loan of $16,000,000 
at five per cent, but failed. Then the state lived on 
gifts for a few weeks, but September 29th Necker 
proposed an income tax of twenty-five per cent, to be 
paid within three years, the citizen himself simply 
declaring his income. The scheme was preposterous, 
but Mirabeau supported it as a last resort, and 
it was voted. But to no purpose. Taxes could not 
be collected in a state in which the executive had 
practically been annihilated. In November, Necker 
proposed that the collection of the taxes should be 
handed over to Caisse d' Escornpte^ or Department of 
Loans, which should advance a fixed sum. Mirabeau 
opposed this plan, and it amounted to nothing. The 
financial stringency was increased by the nobles and 

*In June the Assembly had declared that existing taxes should be paid 
provisionally until new laws were passed. Naturally the people did not pay 
provisional taxes. 



i6o The French Revolution 

wealthy bou7'geois exporting their specie to London, and 
by the various relief schemes which were being car- 
ried on by Paris. The capital was spending $32,000 
a month on public workshops, and in January and 
February lent $3,400,000 to the masses to buy food, 
all of which it borrowed from the national treasury. 
In fact, the socialistic tendency was marked, and the 
masses were being supported in large part by the 
municipality. Its need, in turn, reacted upon the 
Assembly, for the only hope of national quiet lay in 
the quiet of Paris, and this had to be bought. 

During this period of financial desperation the 
Assembly had nationalized the royal domain, and in 
October confiscated the real estate of the church, and 
then ordered the sale of $80,000,000 worth of its land.^ 
In November, Mirabeau suggested the issuing of scrip 
with this land as collateral, and on March 17, 1790, 
the Assembly voted to issue the first assignats. The 
plan was very simple, and had no further paper money 
been issued, perfectly sound. Eighty million dollars 
of paper money were issued in interest-bearing notes, 
and these were to be received at their face value in 
payment for the church lands. At first the assignats 
circulated at par, but in a few weeks speculators in 
the church lands had forced them down ten per cent, 
and even then the municipalities to whom the Assembly 
had assigned the selling of the lands within their 
limits, kept the assignats and sent their own worthless 
bonds to the national treasury.^ The government 

^Talleyrand was probably the real author of the scheme. 

''The shameless dishonesty of some patriots is also seen in that after 
making the first payment in assignats, by which they were given possession 
of the lands, they cut off the timber and decamped before the second install- 
ment became due. 



The Reorganization of France i6i 

really was benefited but little by the transaction, and 
within a few months found itself in new straits. So 
terrible did a declaration of bankruptcy seem to Mira- 
beau, that through his influence (September 27, 1790) 
the Assembly voted an additional issue of $160,000,000 
of assigfiats, though with the solemn assurance that 
the sum then in circulation ($240,000,000) should not 
be exceeded. But the descent into the Avernus of 
fiat money is easy. By June, 1791, the issue of Sep- 
tember had been used, and the state was again in 
need. One hundred and twenty million dollars more 
were issued, much of the sum being in five-franc notes, 
whereas formerly fifty-franc had been the smallest 
denomination. The result was to people France with 
speculators. The very peasant was unable to tell the 
value of the crop he raised. Patriotism has seldom, 
if ever, withstood an opportunity to grow rich at the 
expense of the country for which one is ready to die, 
and every purchaser of state or church land, looking 
forward to future payments on the same, was anxious 
to depreciate the value of the assignats. Specie left the 
country; trade, at first brisk, diminished; and France 
was soon tasting all the miseries of a hopelessly depre- 
ciated currency.^ 

This financial history was but the reverse side of 
the Assembly's ecclesiastical policy. On the whole, 
this was markedly generous. After nationalizing the 
property of the church, it agreed to pay its debts 
($30,000,000), and while dissolving the monasteries 

' Altogether during the Revolution 48,000,000,000 francs of assignats were 
issued. See White, Paper Money in France; Walker, Money, 336-347; 
Blanc, History of the French Revolution, bk. xiv, ch. 3; Dillaye, Money and 
Finances of the French Revolution; Stourra, Les Finances de I'Ancien 
Regime et de la Revolution, 11, 277-329. 



1 62 The French Revolution 






and seizing their property, it agreed to pension the 
monks and nuns. The state undertook to support all 
the clergy from the taxes, reducing greatly the sal- 
aries of the bishops and increasing those of the curates. 
The bishops were hereafter to be considered as the 
servants of the state, paid by the state. The salaries, 
according to the importance of the bishopric, were to 
vary from $2,500 to $10,000 a year. The curates 
were to have from 1,200 fr. to 2,400 fr. a year, besides 
a house and garden. There was much justice in this; 
but the position taken by the Assembly in regard to 
the political position of the clergy was full of danger. 
It involved two specific provisions. There was to be 
but one bishop for a department and one curate for 
each commune, each to be elected and to take an oath 
to support the yet uncompleted constitution. This 
practically amounted to a break with the Pope. If 
bishops were to be elected by their parishioners, and 
if they were to be simply the civil functionaries of the 
state, the organization of the church was evidently 
at an end. Thus by the end of the first year since 
the States General the Catholic clergy had ceased to 
monopolize religion, had ceased to be a privileged 
order, had ceased to be feudal lords, had ceased to be 
subject to the Pope.^ 

It was inevitable that resistance should be made 
to such radical changes. The bishops refused to take 
the civic oath, and July 24, 1790, a law was passed 
that unless the oath were taken no priest or bishop 
should remain in office. Only four bishops took the 
oath. It was but natural, therefore, that a bull of 

*See Debidour, VEglise et VEtat en France, pt. i, ch§. i, z. 



The Reorganization of France 163 

April 13, 1791, should denounce this civil constitution 
of the clergy, as based on heretical principles, and 
that as a result, good Catholics should regard the ser- 
vices of all civic priests as without efficacy in birth, 
marriage, and death. In Alsace a petition against the 
nationalization of the church estates was signed by 
twenty-one thousand persons, including Lutherans 
and Jews as well as Catholics. In this case the oppo- 
sition was doubtless economic, as the sale of the 
church lands was sure to injure the tenant-farmers. 
But in other parts of France religious sympathies were 
more in evidence, and so anarchic was the nation that 
miniature religious wars broke out in several cities. 
Later, the attempt to enforce the civil constitution of 
the clergy in the Vendee gave rise to a great uprising 
against the revolutionary government. 

These and other disorders showed plainly the 
untrustworthy condition of the entire military force. 
It has already appeared that after the fall of the Bas- 
tille the bourgeois class throughout France began to 
form the so-called National Guards. Under the con- 
stitution this military force was firmly established, 
both as a reserve and as a militia to maintain order. 
But the regular army was still in existence, and the 
Assembly proceeded to reform it. This was all the 
more imperative since the men were now under 
the influence of the current thought about equality, 
and demanded that they as well as other men should 
have a share in the new order of things. The Assem- 
bly therefore raised the pay of the soldiers, opened 
the rank of commissioned officers to all classes, and 
itself assumed control of the entire military establish- 



164 The French Revolution 



I 



ment, leaving to the king the right to appoint only the 
commander-in-chief and the marshals. Had some 
way been devised by which discipline could be reestab- 
lished, these military reforms would have been very 
beneficial; as it was, however, with the exception of 
the Swiss and German mercenaries, the entire army 
grew insubordinate, suspicious of its officers, and gen- 
erally more in need of being guarded than capable of 
maintaining order. 

With the judiciary, perhaps, the Assembly was 
more successful. The Parlements were abolished, 
local courts were authorized in every administrative 
division, with appeals from the lower to the higher. 
Juries were to try all criminal cases. In accordance 
with the general passion for voting, all judges and 
juries were to be elected. A new institution was the 
establishment of a high court to try cases of treason. 

Finally, as regards the legislative body of the 
nation, the Assembly decided that it should have but 
one chamber, its members to be elected by the differ- 
ent departments. The absence of a second chamber 
made hasty legislation easy, and this fact, when 
coupled with 'the impracticable suspensive veto, was 
calculated to lead to friction between the legislative 
and the executive branches of the government. This 
over-emphasis upon legislation which the constitution 
of 1 791 everywhere shows was only a reflection of the 
dominating spirit of the Constituent Assembly. It 
believed men could be made happy and the nation 
orderly by proclamations and laws. It was this belief, 
born of the enjoyment of new privileges and the 
remembrance of former "slavery," that explains the 



The Reorganization of France 165 

Assembly's disregard of administration, of discipline 
in the army, and severe repression of disorder among 
the peasantry. If ever a strong government is needed, 
it is when a country is just experiencing the intoxica- 
tion of new liberties, but this, as we have seen, was 
the one thing the Assembly was unable, even unwil- 
ling, to give France. In this as in other particulars 
it accurately represented the philosophical, idealistic 
temper of the class of society from which it was 
elected. But like all idealists, it could not see that 
it was confronted by facts and not theories; by 
Frenchmen and not natural men. Its principles were 
noble; the men it would benefit were unprepared to 
live nobly; individualism was carried to extremes; 
repressive government was judged unworthy of the 
new age. And in these facts lay the explanation of 
the next phase of the Revolution.^ 

'The different estimate placed upon the work of the Assembly by open- 
eyed contemporaries is to be seen in Rabaut St. Etienne, Fretich Revolution ; 
Burke, Reflections on the French Revolution, and the running commentary 
of Mirabeau in his papers sent La Marck and Montmorin. Popular anticipa- 
tions are to be seen in Arthur Young, Travels. 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE PROGRESS OF THE REVOLUTIONARY SPIRIT^ 

I. The Festival of the Confederation, July 14, 1790. II. Mira- 
beau and the Court. III. The Activity of Radical Revo- 
lutionists, IV. Forces Making toward Radicalism: i. 
State Socialism; 2. The Jacobin Club; 3. The Cordelier 
Club; 4. The Indifference of the Bourgeoisie to Voting; 
5. The Death of Mirabeau; 6. The Flight of the King; 
7. The "Massacre of the Champs de Mars." V. The End 
of the Constituent Assembly. 

On February 4, 1790, Louis unexpectedly came to 
the Assembly, and after a short speech intended to 
offset certain suspicions as to a proposed flight, in his 
own name and that of the queen and his young son 
solemnly took the civic oath to abide by the new order 
of things. The Assembly was raised to a high pitch 
of loyal enthusiasm, and with great cheering voted 
the king its thanks. But his oath suggested similar 
action, and every deputy came forward and in his turn 
took the civic oath; then the substitute deputies, the 
galleries, the crowd about the doors, all took the same 
oath, until the building fairly trembled with shouts of 
"I swear it." From the Assembly the oath passed 
through Paris, and from town to town over all France. 
Never was the spirit of the country more heartily 
loyal and hopeful, and the Assembly determined that 

*In general, see Stephens, Fr^w^/z Revolution, 1, chs. 11, 14, i5;Taine, 
French Revolution, II, bk. iv, chs. i, 2; Von Hoist, French Revolution, II, 
chs. 10-12. 

166 



The Progress of the Revolutionary Spirit 167 

the first anniversary of the fall of the Bastille should 
be celebrated on a gigantic scale as a national festival 
of confederation. 

Thousands of persons of all classes worked furi- 
ously to arrange seats of turf in the great Champs de 
Mars. Invitations were sent out to all the depart- 
ments to send delegates. Enthusiasm redoubled as 
these representatives began to arrive in the city, and 
when July 14, 1790, arrived, rainy though it was, four 
hundred thousand persons and sixty thousand troops 
were assembled. In the midst of the great field stood 
an altar upon a base twenty-five feet high. And 
there, surrounded by three hundred priests, Talley- 
rand' performed mass, accompanied by the booming of 
cannon. La Fayette, as commander of the National 
Guards, received the form of oath from the king, 
carried it to the altar; and then the soldiers, the 
deputies, the king, with arms outstretched, took the 
oath. The queen held out the little dauphin to the 
people, and the vast company burst into shouts of 
wildest enthusiasm. At the same moment all over 
France smaller bodies of citizens were stretching out 
their arms and swearing the same oath. That night 
Paris was illuminated, and people danced on the spot 
where the Bastille had stood a year before, the symbol 
of a now departed absolutism. No other nation could 
or would have undertaken such a celebration, but to 
France it seemed as if liberty was at last achieved, 
and all suspicion of the king's sincerity was stilled. 
Had Louis but accepted Mirabeau's advice, and from 
that moment energetically put himself at the head of 

* "Don't make me laugh," he said to La Fayette. 



P 



} 



i68 The French Revolution 

the new national movement, there can be little doubt 
the nation's loyalty would never have been less.^ 

This celebration of July 14, 1790, not only shows, 
how thoroughly national the Revolution was, but i 
marks the acme of its idealistic phase. If we except 
the details to be formally incorporated in the consti- 
tution during the succeeding months, all benefits had 
been done France that were to be permanent. Abso- 
lutism, privileges, unjust taxation and feudal dues, 
the provincial divisions, the parlements, all had for- 
ever disappeared, and there was left to king and cour- 
tiers simply the duty of accommodating themselves to 
the new condition of affairs. The problems left were 
at bottom administrative, and the fact that Mirabeau 
was giving advice might have been a basis of help.^ 
For several months he had been coming more into 
touch with the king. In a full statement of his 
political belief he had declared his persistent devotion 
to royalty and his determination to aid it as the onej 
means of restoring tranquillity to the nation, but on^ 
the sole condition that the king should sincerely and 
without reservation accept the reforms accomplished! 
and put himself at the head of a constitutional 
government. It was with no disloyalty, therefore, to 
his original principles that he secretly accepted a large 

' Illustrations of the loyalty of the departments are numerous. As the 
deputies from the departments were presented to Louis, the leader of those > 
from Brittany knelt and presented Louis his sword, saying: " I place in 
your hands the faithful sword of the Bretons; it shall only be reddened by 
the blood of your foes." Louis raised and embraced him, and returned the 
sword, saying: " It can never be in better hands than in those of my brave 
Bretons. I have never doubted their loyalty and affection; assure them that 
I am the father and brother, the friend of all Frenchmen." " Sire," replied 
the deputy, " every Frenchman loves, and will continue to love you, because i 
you are a citizen-king." Carlyle has a most vivid account of this celebration. 

''To understand the true relations of Mirabeau with the court, see 
Correspondance entre Mirabeau et La Marck. This correspondence, also, 
is invaluable as a running commentary on the course of the Revolution. 



The Progress of the Revolutionary Spirit 169 

pension from the king, and repeatedly counseled the 
representative of the court as to the proper course of 
conduct. The details of the plans varied according 
to the circumstances of the day, but their main pur- 
pose was to prevent counter-revolution, to lead Louis 
to see the real benefits of the destructive work of the 
Assembly, and, especially at first, to induce him to 
make the government less Parisian by leaving the 
capital and establishing himself and a new Assembly, 
supported by the departments, in some city where the 
pressure of the mob would be removed. 

By no advice, however, could Mirabeau accomplish 
anything, because of the insincerity of the queen, the 
inertia of the king, the jealous puritanism of La 
Fayette, and the incapacity of Necker. The latter, 
indeed, resigned, and retired to Switzerland in Sep- 
tember, 1790, but the other sources of difficulty 
remained. In the face of Mirabeau's warnings, reac- 
tion grew more open. The Right in the Assembly 
urged on extravagant legislation in order to bring the 
Assembly into disrepute; the clergy preached against 
the sacrilege done the church; the nobility constantly 
left the kingdom for other countries, there to excite 
Europe against the Assembly, and if possible to secure 
troops with which to reinstate the Old Regime; the 
officers of the standing army grew hostile to the gov- 
ernment they had sworn to serve; the clergy of Jales 
organized against the government, and their league 
was to grow into a secret confederation against the 
new ecclesiastical legislation; England seemed on 
the point of involving the country in a war through 
its quarrel with Spain, the ally of France, over Nootka 



lyo The French Revolution 



I 



Sound; and the attitude of Germany and Austria 
justified apprehension. The practical question was, 
as Mirabeau saw, who should control and direct the 
masses of the departments. Those of Paris might 
safely be trusted to attain slowly to sobriety under 
the influence of the National Guard and La Fayette. 

But Mirabeau's words were unheeded. This appeal 
to the nation the court would not make. The inaction 
was fatal. While the nobility were hoping for some 
miraculous undoing of the New Regime, and the 
bourgeoisie grew complacently indifferent to strong 
government, the Extreme Left was organizing public 
opinion throughout the masses of the entire nation. 
And when this spirit had once expressed itself at the 
polls, a new revolution had begun. 

This new radicalism may be traced directly to 
that revolutionary spirit whose steady growth has- 
already been noticed. It was incipiently social- 
istic, in that men had come to hold that the state 
should aid the municipalities, maintain public work- 
shops for the benefit of the unemployed, and by the 
latter part of 1790 these establishments and their 
beneficiaries had become so numerous as to constitute 
a severe tax upon the well-to-do classes. The influ- 
ence of the municipalities is also seen in the legisla- 
tion of the Assembly. The explanation of the aboli- 
tion of certain indirect taxes and the retention of 
others lies almost entirely in their bearing upon the 
cities, and above all upon Paris. In fact, the Com- 
mune of Paris practically dictated the fiscal policy of 
the Assembly. 

Back of the new spirit of the masses lay the work 



The Progress of the Revolutionary Spirit 171 

of the Society of the Friends of the Constitution, bet- 
ter known as the Jacobin Club. In 1789, while the 
Assembly was still in Versailles, a body of what were 
then rather extreme liberals began dining together 
for the purpose of discussing the policy of reform. 
It was first known as the Breton Club, and afterward 
as the Society of the Friends of the Constitution, and 
included many distinguished men, among them La Fay- 
ette, Talleyrand, and Mirabeau. After the Assembly 
went to Paris, the club met in a small room and, later, 
in the library of a monastery belonging to the Domin- 
icans, known popularly as the Jacobins, because of 
their church of St. James. This nickname passed to 
the club. In Paris it rapidly grew less moderate. The 
leaders of the Extreme Left, who were too few and 
advanced to have influence in the Assembly, soon 
became the most important among its members 
through their great earnestness and their popularity 
among the masses. By the end of 1790 the Jacobins 
numbered more than a thousand members, and had 
ceased to be merely a debating club, but were seeking 
to influence the populace of Paris. In 1791 La Fay- 
ette and the more moderate members withdrew, to 
form the short-lived and ineffective club of the 
Feuillants, and men like Robespierre were left in 
full control.^ Similar clubs were formed throughout 
France. In every municipality the citizens, no longer 
the indifferent persons described by Arthur Young, 
met to discuss the matters which busied the Assem- 
bly, and to express their views by votes. Their 

^On the Jacobin Club, by far the most important work is Aulard, La So- 
ciete des Jacobins. 



172 The French Revolution 

information came through the Parisian newspapers, 
which by 1791 had attained a vast circulation and 
consequent influence. At the outset these clubs were 
under the control of the well-to-do classes, and in 
fact were seldom if ever led by members of the prol- 
etariat. In the course of time, however, the more 
conservative element tired of perpetual discussion, 
and gradually withdrew. The control of the clubs 
then passed to young lawyers who embraced the cause 
of the masses and soon became as hostile to the bour- 
geoisie as to the aristocracy. 

All these clubs were profound admirers of the 
Jacobin Club of Paris, and by the beginning of 1791 
were gradually affiliating with that body. Through 
these confederated clubs the radicals of Paris rapidly 
acquired the control of the voting bodies of all the 
municipalities of France, and were able so to unify 
political action as in a measure to anticipate the mod- 
ern political party. The general program of the affili- 
ated clubs was based upon popular sovereignty, and, by 
degrees, became hostile to monarchy as an institution. 

Almost as influential in Paris, though far less so in 
the departments, was the Cordelier Club. Its name, 
like that of the Jacobins, was derived from a monas- 
tery in which its meetings were held. From its incep- 
tion it was radical, its members including Danton, 
Marat, Camille Desmoulins, Hebert, Legendre. All 
these men were opposed to compromise, and were 
anxious to destroy every vestige of the Old Regime, 
monarchy as well as feudalism.^ 

*It should not be overlooked that the Jacobin and the Cordelier were 
by no means the only clubs in Paris. Nor were all clubs composed of radi- 
cals. There were the Club of 1789, composed of moderate men like La 



The Progress of the Revolutionary Spirit 173 

This supremacy of the more violent revolutionists 
in the clubs was part of a process through which the 
entire nation was passing. After the enthusiasm of 
July 14, 1790, the majority of Frenchmen believed 
further attention on their part to affairs of state was not 
needed ; they had won their cause, and were content 
now to let government manage itself. Thus the "sov- 
ereign people" rapidly resolved itself into an aggres- 
sive minority, composed of the lower classes, managed 
by Jacobins.^ It is safe to say that at any moment in 
the Revolution this minority could have been defeated, 
and that in 1791 its political power could have been 
destroyed if the other elements of society had gone to 
the polls.^ As it was, this minority was made increas- 
ingly violent, not alone by journalists like Desmoulins 
and Marat, and such Jacobins as Robespierre and 
Petion, but also by thoroughly brutal men, like San- 
terre and Hebert in Paris and a multitude of local 
leaders throughout the departments. There the 
struggle between the local Jacobins and the order- 
loving boiu'geoisie was more violent and more often 
marked by bloodshed than in Paris, where the 

Fayette, Sieyes, and Talleyrand; the Feuillant Club, composed of deputies 
who had seceded from the Jacobins; the non-partisan Club of \'alois; the 
royalist Monarchical Club, which, however, was suppressed as soon as it 
attempted to win the masses by supplies of food. But none of these clubs 
were of anything like the importance of the Jacobin and Cordelier. 

'Taine, French Revolution, II, 31, 32, gives authorities and figures. In 
Paris, in August, 67,200 voters out of 81,400 did not vote, and three months 
later the absentees numbered 71,408. In the departments the disparity is 
far greater. At Grenoble 2,000 of the 2,500 registered voters did not appear 
at the polls, and even fewer at Limoges. Even when persons were chosen 
members of the electoral college, they did not take the trouble to perform 
their duties. Of 946 Parisian electors only 200 voted; and again in the de- 
partments the same neglect is to be observed. 

^This conclusion is supported by these figures: In Paris, out of more 
than 81,000 registered voters, only 6,700 voted for Petion as mayor, yet he 
received the majority of the votes cast. In 1792, he was elected by about 
14,000 out of 160,000 registered voters. The case was similar in the depart- 
ments. See Taine, French Revolution, II, 46. 



174 The French Revolution 

National Guard had come to be feared. The estab- 
lishment of royalist or conservative clubs was nearly 
always followed by riots. Mobs frequently lynched 
men suspected of being "aristocrats," and at Aix 
their victim was the procurateur-general-syndic of the 
department. In Avignon^ the Jacobins, under a 
wagoner named Jourdan, massacred sixty-one persons 
and threw their bodies into the tower of the Glaciere.^ 
Even worse acts of violence occurred in the colonies, 
and especially in San Domingo, where the negroes 
rose against the whites. 

Mirabeau himself seems to have felt the pressure 
of the new spirit, for during the last months of his life 
his speeches in the Assembly were on a plane distinctly 
nearer that of the demagogue.^ This change may be 
ascribed both to the temper of those who prepared his 
speeches — for Mirabeau frequently delivered those he 
himself had not written, and at least in one case had 
not even read over — and to his later and questionable 
policy of discrediting the Assembly in order to bring 
about a partial reaction in favor of the monarchy. 
But neither is the complete explanation. There 

' Avignon had been the home of the Popes during the so-called Babylonish 
Captivity in the fourteenth century, and at the time of the Revolution it was 
still under the papal legate. The French Jacobin party was in the minority, 
but gathered a mob of bloodthirsty peasants and under the direction of 

iourdan inaugurated a reign of terror, but order was restored by the 
lational Guard. Then began a miniature civil war between the citizens 
who wished to remain subject to the Pope and those who wished to unite 
Avignon to France. By the summer of 1791 commissioners appointed by 
the Constituent Assembly advised that the union be permitted and that 
troops be sent to maintain order. Through the inefficiency of the ministry 
these did not arrive promptly. 

^Jourdan returned to Avignon and lived unmolested until July, 1794, 
when he was guillotined by the deputy on mission as a moderate republican! 
^For the most important of the speeches of Mirabeau and the other 
orators of the Revolution, see Stephens, The Orators of the French Revolu- 
tion.; on the question of the authorship of those of Mirabeau, see Aulard, 
Les Orateurs de la Constttuante, 130-170. 



The Progress of the Revolutionary Spirit 175 

was in addition the necessity of using the Jacobins. 
"Ill-fated nation I" he wrote in December, 1790, "to 
this hast thou been brought by some men, who have 
supplanted talent by intrigue and conceptions by com- 
motions. " At the time he wrote these words he was 
president of the Jacobins, and was evidently fight- 
ing for strong government with the weapons of dema- 
gogues. How far he was from approving the radicalism 
of the club appears from the fact that February 28, 
1 791, he was forced to defend himself at one of its 
sessions because of his having opposed a high-handed 
law against emigration; but affairs were in such a 
condition that, as his opponent, Lameth, said in his 
attack upon him at the club, only from the midst of 
the Jacobins could he wield the lever of opinion. 

Yet even thus the case was nearly hopeless for a 
man suspected of having been bought by the king,^ 
and we can only speculate as to what would have 
been his influence in 1792. That he could have 
stopped the drift toward a republic and the despotism 
of popular leaders is not probable. In 1794 friend- 
ship with him was one of the charges that brought 
Danton to the guillotine. Perhaps it was fate's one 
kindly act in his strangely resultless life that he died 
before the great struggle over the monarchy really 
opened. 

To the last he strove to accomplish the impossible. 
The court apparently counted him as simply one enemy 
bribed to silence. La Fayette would not soil himself 
by any combination with him ; the Jacobins hated him 

^Newsdealers were selling on the streets of Paris a pamphlet, "'The 
Great Treason of Count Mirabeau," 



176 The French Revolution 

for his moderation ; the Assembly rejected his sane pro- 
posals, and adopted only those in which he temporized 
with demagogism ; Montmorin, minister of foreign 
affairs, alone appreciated his clear vision, and practi- 
cally allowed him as a member of the diplomatic com- 
mittee of the Assembly to manage the foreign relations 
of the state. His early death, like his political failure, 
came on April 2, 1791, as a penalty of his dissipations. 
He was buried with immense pomp in the Pantheon; 
but less than three years later his body was removed 
to make room for that of Marat. 

The months that followed were filled with attacks 
upon royalty, occasioned by the new opportunities 
given the Extreme Left by the death of Mirabeau 
and by the threatening attitude of Europe. Two great 
camps of emigres nobles were forming just over the 
frontier, at Coblentz and Worms, and at a secret con- 
ference held in Mantua, May 20, 1791, Austria, Prussia, 
the smaller German states, Spain, Switzerland, and 
even England, agreed in vague terms to come to the 
help of the king. The Assembly knew little or noth- 
ing of these plans, but instinctively suspected the 
queen of treachery, and persisted in its reduction of 
the royal power. 

Its suspicions were, on the whole, justified, for 
Louis was making plans to escape to Bouill6, who was 
in charge of the military force of Lorraine, there to 
put himself at the head of civil war. Even in this he 
was not unsuspected. On the i8th of April, 1791, he 
had undertaken to drive out to St. Cloud in order to 
celebrate mass. But the crowd thought he was plan- 
ning to escape, and for twelve hours thronged about 



The Progress of the Revolutionary Spirit 177 

the carriages, preventing their moving, and Louis 
had to give up his plan. But the insult, as well as the 
revelation of his condition, stung him, and he yielded 
to the entreaties of his friends, and determined to flee 
in real earnest. Through a Russian lady a large trav- 
eling-carriage was ordered and passports taken out, 
and on the night of June 21st the king and queen were 
spirited out of Paris in cabs and started for the fron- 
tier in the great coach, the queen as the Russian lady 
and Louis as her valet. ^ The plan was desperate at 
the best, but was rendered even more so by the 
queen's preparatory dressmaking, her demands for 
maids and a bathtub, and by the king's refusal to go 
by the most direct roads in some faster conveyance 
than the great coach. Bouille, however, arranged his 
troops at the proper place; a charming adventurer, 
Count Fersen, arranged all details in Paris — which no 
one seemed bright enough to carry out — and for sev- 
eral days France was without a king. Indeed, it was 
also in a sort of legal anarchy, for before leaving 
Paris Louis drew up a paper in which he withdrew his 
signature to various bills on the plea that it had been 
obtained by force. But the flight proved a succession 
of blunders. The fugitives traveled so slowly that 
Bouille thought the plan had been abandoned, and 
did not meet them at the appointed place. At the 
little town of Sainte Menehould Louis put his head 
out of the window, and was recognized; at Varennes 

Uf the plan is in any way traceable to the old advice of Mirabeau, noth- 
ing could have been less in accord with his purpose. Carlyle's account of 
this flight is inaccurate in details, but a piece of marvelous writing. For the 
sober facts of the case, see Oscar Browning, The Flight to Varennes. Briefer 
accounts are in McCarthy, French Revolution, 11, chs. 32-35; Stephens, 
French Revolution, I, ch. 15. 



178 The French Revolution 

the party was stopped; the troops, who were near by, 
were unable or unwilling to render aid, and the 
unhappy fugitives in their disguises were kept pris- 
oners in the home of the mayor, over his grocery-shop, 
and finally taken back to Paris by the National Guards 
and representatives of the Assembly.^ 

From one point of view, it seems as if it would 
have been the part of wisdom for the French people 
to let Louis escape; they would have had one less 
complication with which to deal; they would not have 
been obliged to kill him. But looked at from another 
side, it was exceedingly fortunate for France that the 
king did not escape, and become a nucleus point 
for disaffection and counter-revolution. France in 
1 791 was less ready to withstand invasion than in 
1792. And the success of the invader would have 
meant the undoing of the work of the Assembly and 
the punishment of its leaders. 

Considered simply historically, we find that this 
attempted escape of the king cost him the confidence 
of the nation. It is true that he was received in Paris 
without insult, and that when, a few months later, he 
accepted the constitution he regained in a way the 
love of his people. But the tide was running out too 
fast for Louis ever again, with his vacillating, com- 
monplace nature, to hold the love of the nation. 
From the day of this flight. toward, even if not to, the 
enemies of France, the monarchy was doomed. 

It is no mere coincidence that the final separation 

'One of these representatives, the Jacobin Barnave, was so charmed by 
the queen that he lost his former enthusiasm for the Revolution, retired to 
private life, and was subsequently guillotined as a reactionist. 



The Progress of the Revolutionary Spirit 179 

of the Parisian bourgeoisie from the masses is to be 
placed at almost the same time as this self-inflicted 
blow to monarchy. The two were results of the same 
rapidly developing spirit. For months La Fayette 
had been endeavoring to maintain order in the turbu- 
lent capital, and at his request the Assembly had 
decreed that in case of a more than usually dangerous 
disturbance a red flag should be hung from the Hotel 
de Ville, the riot act read thrice, and then if the mob 
did not disperse, the troops were to fire. No occasion 
for such drastic measures arose until after the return 
of the king from Varennes. At that time Danton, 
a man in many respects like Mirabeau, and one who 
was to play a great part in the next period of the 
Revolution, seeing that the Assembly was incapable 
of good government, and hating monarchy as an 
institution, proposed at the Cordelier Club a popular 
petition for the removal and trial of Louis. The 
Cordeliers (and Jacobins as well) approved the plan, 
and despite the orders of Bailly, the mayor of Paris, 
the petition was drawn up, and on July 17, 1791, laid 
on the great altar in the Champs de Mars for signature. 
The Parisian crowd was charmed, and the great field 
was alive with men and women, half-anxious to sign 
the petition and half-curious to see whether Bailly 
really would live up to his threat and disperse them. 
Everything went quietly until a couple of men were 
found under the platform. Their explanation for their 
presence was not convincing, and the crowd imme- 
diately suspected they were agents of some diabolical 
royal gunpowder plot, and tore them to pieces. A riot 



1 80 The French Revolution 






ensued, and the mob refused to disperse. Whereupon 
the red flag was displayed, the riot act read by Bailly, 
and the National Guard ordered to fire upon the crowd. 
As a result, a number of persons were killed or injured. 
In itself this affair does not appear important, but 
its influence was lasting. It was not merely that 
republicanism had appeared. The National Guard 
was composed of members of the bourgeoisie^ the crowd 
of the masses; and this "Massacre of the Champs de 
Mars" became the watchword of a new and murderous 
class hatred.^ For the moment, however, the party 
of the constitution and order had triumphed. Danton, 
Marat, Desmoulins, Robespierre disappeared, and the 
Assembly publicly thanked the National Guard. But 
the moderates did not follow up their victory. The 
Jacobins almost immediately recovered their suprem- 
acy, and through the mother society the affiliated 
clubs were excited to further opposition to monarchy 
and the boui-geoisie. The mob of Paris might be forced 
into order, but the Jacobin minority of the depart- 
ments was to sweep the Revolution far beyond the 
control of La Fayette and an indifferently civic and 
militant bourgeoisie of the capital. 

Yet so optimistic was the country and so unwilling 
to forecast evil, that when, on September 14, 1791, 
after a fortnight's consideration, Louis accepted the 
Constitution and solemnly swore to uphold it. French- 
men believed the foundations of constitutional lib- 
erty had been laid forever. "The Revolution," said 
Robespierre in an address, September 29, 1791, "is 

'Bailly was guillotined in 1793 on the very spot where the firing had 
occurred. 



The Progress of the Revolutionary Spirit i8i 

finished";^ and Rabaut St. Etienne, a member of the 
Constituent Assembly, published in 1792 his panegyric 
upon its work. 

How far mistaken was this optimism appeared in 
the first expression of the new revolutionary spirit at 
the polls. 

^The speech, which was repeatedly interrupted, is in full in Archivss 
Parlementaires, XXXI, 620. In it Robespierre argues that for the very 
reason that the Revolution is finished the Jacobin Club is needed to explain 
and enforce the articles of the Constitution as well as to maintain the proper 
spirit of patriotism. 



\ 



\ 



I 



CHAPTER XIV 

FOREIGN WAR AND THE END OF THE MONARCHY^ 

I. The Legislative Assembly: i. The Elections; 2. The Giron- 
dins; 3. Marat, Danton, and Robespierre. 11. The Growth 
of the Revolutionary Spirit. III. The War: i. The Giron- 
din Program; 2. The Grounds for War; 3. The Decla- 
ration of War. IV. Growing Opposition to the Monarchy: 
I. The Two Vetoes; 2. June 20, 1792. V. August 10, 1792: 
I. The Proclamation of the Duke of Brunswick; 2. The 
Preparations; 3. The Capture of the Tuileries; 4. The 
Suspension of the King. 

With the first session of the National Legislative 
Assembly, October i, 1791, France began to live under 
its new constitution. Could Louis have been induced 
to reign as a constitutional king, and to abandon all 
attempts at reinstating the Old Regime, something 
like quiet might have returned. But as it was, the 
entire nation was almost immediately convinced that 
the court was plotting against the new order of things 
and invoking foreign aid to help punish the patriots. 
This suspicion, apparently justified by so many acts 
of Louis, made even a constitutional monarchy with 
him as its representative no longer possible. It was 
not that France as a nation wished to be a republic; 
it was rather that it was determined to maintain the 
liberties gained by the Constituent Assembly, and 
that it was filled with abhorrence of the Old Regime 

* In general, see Stephens, French Revolution, II, chs. 1-4; Carlyle, 
French Revolution, bks. v, vi; Thiers, French Revolution, I, 247-331; Taine, 
French Revolution, bk. iv, chs. 4-8, One should also read such novels as 
Erckmann-Chatrian, The Country in Danger, Madame Therese ; Gras, 
The Reds of the Midi. 

. 182 



Foreign War and End of the Monarchy 183 

and terror lest the imigris should be able to reinstate 
it. That this fear of Louis and the emigres was not 
ungrounded appeared within a few months after the 
meeting of the new Assembly. 

The legislative Assembly was a very different body 
from that which had drawn up the Constitution. Upon 
motion of Robespierre, the Constituent Assembly, by 
an act of foolish but well-intended self-denial, had 
decreed that none of its members should be elected to 
the succeeding house. Accordingly, the legislators 
who assembled in 1791 to carry on the affairs of the 
nation were almost as untried in statesmanship and in 
legislative proceedings as had been the members of the 
old States General. The elections had occurred under 
the circumstances already described, and, as is always 
the case, the more radical candidates had generally 
been elected. Besides, there can be little doubt that 
the French leaped with all facility into the secrets of 
intimidation and counting out. Refusal to take the 
civic oath, which included the clerical oath, threw out 
thousands. Many of those who sought to vote, but who 
were known to be opposed to or only half-hearted in 
favor of the Revolution, were beaten, stoned, stabbed. 
In Montpellier, for instance, the ballots were deposited 
and the ballot-boxes sealed. The Conservatives had 
a majority. Thereupon the Jacobin clubs burned one 
of the boxes, and in the process killed two men. A 
riot followed, in which four more men were killed, and 
the authorities terrified into disarming the well-to-do 
inhabitants. In the next three days six hundred fam- 
ilies emigrated. The authorities then reported that 
the elections were proceeding in the quietest manner. 



184 The French Revolution 

Accordingly, when we come to loqk at the com- 
plexion of the new Assembly, we find that it was 
decidedly inferior to the Constituent, although many 
of its members had had some experience in the new 
administrative offices. The old reactionary party 
was absolutely wanting, and the men whose opinions 
represented the Left of the first Assembly had become 
the Right of the second, the Feuillants or Constitu- 
tionalists. A neutral body, known as the Plain, or 
Swamp, occupied seats in the lower and central part 
of the hall. The radical opinions of the Extreme Left 
of the Constituent Assembly were represented by 
a large delegation known as the Mountain, from the 
high seats in which they sat. The most important 
party, however, in the Legislative Assembly was that 
of the Girondins, who, with the Mountain, composed 
the Left. They were all from the departments, and 
derived their name from the fact that their leaders, 
about whom they loosely gathered, came from the 
Department of the Gironde, in the southwestern por- 
tion of France. The Girondins have been immortal- 
ized in the great work of Lamartine as pure-minded 
patriots who finally became martyrs to their zeal for 
good politics. As a matter of fact, they were a body 
of hot-headed, inexperienced, eloquent young lawyers, 
full of admiration for Greeks and Romans, but with 
scarcely a statesmanlike idea among them. Wherever 
there was an opportunity for them to make a mistake, 
they enthusiastically accepted the opportunity.* But 

^The political sagacity of the Girondins may be judged not only by their 
determination to establish a republic by a foreign war, and the astonishing 
Constitution of Condorcet, but by the proposal of Brissot. chairman of the 
Diplomatic Committee, that Dunkirk and Calais be ceded to England as 
pledges that France would abide by any treaty made with that country. 



Foreign War and End of the Monarchy 185 

their leaders were so eloquent, and their confidence 
in themselves so cheering, that for a few months they 
were able to control the policy of the Assembly. 
Their program was simply the abolition of the mon- 
archy and the establishment of a republic. Their high 
priestess was Madame Roland,' wife of a highly respect- 
able, conscientious politician, double her age; a bright, 
ambitious woman, with a touch of genius, a taste for 
clubs, and a great fondness for attending to her hus- 
band's business. 

Three men, however, clearly outranked all others 
as popular leaders — Marat, Danton, Robespierre. Of 
the three, Marat had been prominent from the sum- 
moning of the States General as a fanatical preacher 
of popular vengeance, but during the restoration of 
order by La Fayette and the National Guard he had 
seen his printing establishment broken up, and had been 
forced to hide himself, sometimes even in the sewers. 
With the coming of the new Assembly, however, he 
again took up open conflict with the hated aristocrats. 
Clear-eyed as to dangers, his one prescription was the 
death of those through whom dangers might arise. 

Far different from Marat was Georges Jacques 
Danton,^ who under the Old Regime had been a suc- 
cessful young lawyer in Paris. He had entered heartily 
into the elections for the States General, but soon 
grew dissatisfied with the work of the Constituent 
Assembly, and at first favored a change of dynasty. 

*On Madame Roland, see Sainte ^&\x\&. Portraits of Celebrated Women, 
90; Laniartine, Girondists (Bohn ed.), I, 272-293; Dauban, Rtude sur Madame 
Roland; Yons,^e, Life of Madavie Roland; Johnson, Private Memoirs of 
Mada)ne Roland. 

*0n Danton, see Bou<jeart, Dantoti ; Bel'.oc. Dmton: A Study ; Beesly, 
Life of Danton; Gronlund, Ca Ira. 



1 86 The French Revolution 

As the founder of the Cordelier Club he soon became 
known as an advanced revolutionist, and in 1791 was 
elected substitute to tht procureur of the Commune of 
Paris, an official position which gave him great influ- 
ence in the capital. Though not of exceptional ability, 
he was easily the most forceful man the Revolution 
produced between Mirabeau and Bonaparte. He has, 
indeed, often, and with justice, been compared with 
Mirabeau in point of eloquence, resourcefulness, and 
freedom from that doctrinaire madness which perverted 
the minds of most of his contemporaries. Unlike 
Mirabeau, however, he was able to organize a follow- 
ing, and was ready to adopt extreme measures. 

Totally unlike Marat or Danton was Maximilien 
Robespierre,' a young lawyer of thirty-three, from 
Arras. He was a precise, austere, intense, mediocre 
little man whose youth had been passed in poverty and 
study. He early became a disciple of Rousseau, and 
as far as his native town permitted, devoted himself 
to law and literature. There remain to this day 
a few of his poems and other writings, some upon 
birds, and one upon Disgraceful Punishments. He 
seems to have been successful in his law practice, and 
was at last appointed to a judgeship. This, however, 
he resigned after he had been obliged to pronounce 
a sentence of death. At the time of his election to 
- the States General he had, therefore, some little repu- 

^The great work upon Robespierre is Histoire de Robespierre, by his 
enthusiastic admirer, Hamel. In English see G. H. Lewes, Life of Maxi- 
milien Robespierre, and Morley, "Robespierre" in Critical Miscellanies, 1; 
Stephens, "Robespierre," Encyclopedia Britannica; McCarthy, French 
Revoltition, I, ch. 30; Belloc, Robespierre. Taine, French Revolution, III, 
143-168, is characteristically severe. Robespierre's poem, "The Rose," is in 
Harper's Magazine, April, i8><q. Its translator, Mrs. E. W. Latimer, has re- 
printed it in her Scrap Book of the French Revolution. 



Foreign War and End of the Monarchy 187 

tation as a lawyer and litterateur^ but even less as 
a political theorist. From the time of his appearance 
in Paris, however, he gradually rose in importance, 
and as Mirabeau prophesied while others were laugh- 
ing at him, he was "to go far, since he believed what 
he said." As a popular leader he had two remark- 
able characteristics: he was absolutely incorruptible 
and he refused to pander to the mob. 

Thanks to their leaders, the advanced revolution- 
ary spirit of the Jacobins affected both the Assembly 
and all "good citizens." Extreme opposition to any- 
thing that might look like sympathy with the "aris- 
tocracy" became a sort of fever. Throughout all these 
months of deepening political distress the court had 
maintained as best it could its old state» Balls and 
receptions, the king's lever^ all the rigorous etiquette 
of the Old Regime had continued. But now etiquette 
weakened. Among the first deeds of the Legis- 
lative Assembly was to abolish "Sire" and "Your 
Majesty" as terms with which to address the king, 
and on January i, 1792, Petion, the new Girondin 
mayor of Paris, did not make the customary call at 
the royal palace. Even styles in clothing changed. 
Well-to-do classes of the Old Regime had worn short 
breeches with knee-buckles and silk stockings; the 
workingmen had worn long trousers. The fashions of 
the sovereign people had to be followed, and all men 
who were good revolutionists (except Robespierre) put 
away their short trousers, and wore the long panta- 
loons, long beards, and the red caps of the workingman. 
The expression sans-culottes, or without short breeches, 
became the watchword of all good revolutionists, and 



1 88 The French Revolution 

sans-culottism an expressive word to indicate the wild 
extravagances into which the revolutionists rushed in 
their endeavor to show the equality of all men. 

With the new Assembly, Rousseau's doctrine of 
popular sovereignty comes more than ever to the 
front. If the sessions of the Constituent Assembly 
had been disorderly, those of the Legislative were | 
riotous. The sovereign people could not be excluded ' 
from the hall in which their servants debated, and the 
masses of Paris soon became the dictators of legisla- 
tion. They crowded into the Assembly, howling their 
disapproval, stamping their approval of the measures 
passed by the delegates below. Brissot, for a long 
time a popular idol, when favoring a measure that 
happened not to please the sovereigns in the gallery, 
was pelted with plums. As another of the Girondins 
was trying to push his way up to the door of the 
Assembly, he met a market-woman, who stood in his 
way; he requested her to make room for him, where- 
upon she seized him by the hair, and bade him (and 
made him) bow his head to his sovereign! 

With populace and popular leaders, Mountain and 
Girondins thus united in opposition to monarchy, 
despite the growing devotion of the bourgeoisie to 
constitutional provisions,^ there was almost certainty 
of a republic, but the method of reaching this end was 
worthy of the new spirit 'and the new leaders. Consti- 
tutionally it was impossible to remove the king, except 
for some overt act, like treachery. His flight to 
Varennes might have served as the basis for such 

lit should be remembered that there was in October, 1791, a decided 
reaction toward the king among the more wealthy class of Parisians. Morris 
says that the theaters were full of shouts for him and the royal family. 



Foreign War and End of the Monarchy 189 

a charge, but in the era of good feeling succeeding 
Louis' acceptance of the Constitution all unfavorable 
decrees had been repealed, and the king had regained 
a momentary popularity. Removal by petition had 
been stopped by the "Massacre of the Champs de 
Mars." There was left, the Girondins thought, but 
one alternative, and that was war with the king's 
friends and suspected foreign allies. As a result of 
such a war, it was believed Louis would soon be 
detected in some traitorous act, and could then be 
legally suspended. 

The plan was cumbrous and freighted with infinitely 
more misery than the most enrage deputy could have 
imagined a monarchy like that represented by Louis 
was capable of producing, but it was not altogether 
without reason. The interest of Europe in the Revo- 
lution, as we might easily imagine, was intense. 
A movement which had begun so peacefully and with 
so much eclat, and yet which had developed so rapidly 
into more than disguised opposition to royalty; 
a nation whose king, at first hailed as the savior of 
French liberty, had become practically its prisoner, 
and in which the wilder elements were gaining power, 
were not likely to be passed unnoticed by an age 
trained to expect revolutions.^ As early as August, 
1 791, the king of Prussia and the emperor of Austria 
had concluded a treaty at Pilnitz, and issued a declara- 
tion to the effect that the cause of Louis XVL was 
conditionally made the cause of all the monarchs of 
Europe. This declaration really amounted to but 

^Reference can again be well made to Burke's Reflections on the French 
Revolution. 



190 The French Revolution 






little, and was hardly more than bluster, yet at the 
same time it was never forgotten by the French, and 
increased both their suspicion of the king and their 
dread of foreign intervention in behalf of the Old 
Regime. Nevertheless, after Louis had accepted the 
constitution, the attitude of the European powers grew 
pacific. The king had apparently adjusted matters 
with the nation, and foreign intervention seemed no 
longer needed. But the fatal — and, as we know now, 
well-justified — suspicion of the royal family persisted. 
Another source of danger to France were the emi- 
grant nobles, who had formed two great military 
camps: the one at Coblentz, composed of intriguing, 
inefficient courtiers under the Count d'Artois, and the 
other at Worms, under the Duke of Conde, composed 
of earnest and determined enemies of the New 
Regime, especially as it concerned the church. The 
latter body of men constituted a real danger to 
France, but the Girondins found it more to their pur- 
pose to deal with the former. The Girondin war 
policy was not favored by the Jacobins. Robespierre 
opposed it in three strong speeches, on the ground 
that, so far from giving a democracy, it would 
strengthen the power of the king and the bourgeoisie — 
precisely the reason for which Narbonne, a constitu- 
tionalist rather than Girondin at heart, favored the 
policy. Marat, with the foresight that characterized 
him on most questions where his peculiar hatreds were 
not concerned, argued pertinently in his paper: "Who 
is it that suffers in a war? Not the rich, but the poor, 
not the high-born officer, but the poor peasant." 
Danton completely vanquished Brissot, the war leader 



Foreign War and End of the Monarchy 191 

of the Girondins, in a debate at the Jacobin Club. 
With a bankrupt treasury, a disordered state, an ill- 
disciplined army, untrustworthy officers, and an untried 
constitution, there was everything to lose and little, 
except what was already inevitable, to gain. But the 
Girondins and Madame Roland would not so see the 
future, and the subsequent Reign of Terror, which 
sprang directly from the panic and anarchy caused 
by foreign invasion, is to be laid at the doors of the 
hot-headed young men who precipitated a foreign war 
as a measure of domestic politics.^ 

The grounds for war were not difficult to discover. 
It is true France had unexpired treaties with Austria 
and Prussia, but they might very fairly be said to have 
been strained by the aid given the emigres^ as well as 
by the declaration of Pilnitz. It also appears that the 
Girondins attempted to disregard such formalities. 
Brissot declared that "the sovereignty of the people 
was not to be bound by the treaties of tyrants." 
Fauchet, another of the war party, proposed that the 
Legislative Assembly should make alliances with 
nations like England and America, that were free, and 
with other nations as soon as they conquered their 
freedom, and that in the mean time these other nations 
should be treated like "good-natured savages.'"* 
But such methods did not please the Assembly, and 
the Girondins returned to the emigres. In this they 

^This policy of a foreign war is by no means peculiar to the Girondins. 
Napoleon III. recurred to it three times, and Seward proposed it to Lincoln 
in 1861 as the means of preventing the Civil War in America. But in each 
of these cases it was intended to allay, not intensify, political troubles. 

'^The political vocabulary of the eighteenth century, with its "tyrants," 
"slaves," "liberty." "freemen," is to be seen in most modern political songs, 
including those of America. Compare, for instance, "Hail Columbia" and 
"The Star Spangled Banner" with the "Marseillaise." 



92 The French Revolution 



were unexpectedly aided by the king himself, for 
Louis had dismissed his incompetent minister of war, 
and in his place had appointed Narbonne, at heart 
a constitutionalist, but, as has been said, who sided 
with the Girondins for a reason precisely opposite 
to theirs. The electors of Treves and Mayence were 
protecting the emigres, and December 13th the Assem- 
bly declared to them, through the king, that unless 
all armaments were dispersed, they would be treated 
as enemies. January i6th, Louis informed the Assem- 
bly that the emigres had been expelled from the 
electorates. It was, however, but a shadowy expul- 
sion, and as a matter of fact, the camps remained. 
On January 25th, the Assembly requested the king 
to inform the emperor that if by March ist he 
did not declare his intention to do nothing against 
France, his silence would be regarded as a declar- 
ation of war. Leopold replied in a letter inspired 
by Marie Antoinette, in which he attacked the 
Jacobins. These negotiations were momentarily inter- 
rupted by the death of Leopold, but his successor, 
the young Francis II., neglected the demand of 
the Assembly for an explanation of the declaration 
of Pilnitz, and undertook to champion the cause of 
his aunt, Marie Antoinette. Through his minister 
he therefore wrote France demanding the reestablish- 
ment of the Old Regime on the basis fixed by the 
royal session of June 23, 1789. He further demanded 
damages for those of his nobles who had suffered 
because of the abrogation of feudal dues on the estates 
they held in Alsace. At the same time Austrian 
troops marched toward the French frontier. His 






Foreign War and End of the Monarchy 193 

letter was welcomed in the Assembly with a burst of 
laughter, and after receiving it there was only one 
road to follow. On April 20, 1792, Louis appeared in 
the Assembly, and in a low voice proposed that war 
be declared upon Austria. On the same day, with 
a minority of only seven votes, war was declared — 
a war not for conquest, men said, but for the defense 
and the spread of liberty. And thus light-heartedly 
France entered upon those twenty-three years of 
struggle that were to give to her a republic, a Reign 
of Terror, an empire, and a Bourbon restoration; 
to Europe territorial readjustment, constitutions, and 
public, debts; but to both the imperishable bless- 
ing of political equality, and in the end, so we trust, 
political liberty.^ 

While thus the Girondins were leading the nation 
into war, Louis again had an opportunity to place 
himself at the head of a nation for the moment united 
by a common danger. In a measure he did this by 
appointing a Girondin ministry, in which were 
Dumouriez and Roland; but both he and Marie Antoi- 
nette were fighting for time. They contemptuously 
rejected the aid of La Fayette and Barnave, and as we 
now know from their correspondence, while they were 
apparently leading France into war with Austria and 
the emigres^ they were at the same time appealing to 
both for help. The Assembly knew nothing of this 
fact, though the air was full of attacks upon the king 
and "the Austrian woman" ; but reasons for suspect- 
ing the king's sincerity were also given by his use of 
his constitutional power of veto. 

'The formal declaration of war and Condorcet's Statement of Motives 
are given in Thiers, French Revolution, I, 238-240. 



194 The French Revolution 

Two bills had been passed by the Assembly. The 
first, though perhaps necessary, exhibited the growing 
hatred of the church, and proposed that the priests 
who had refused to take the oath of allegiance to the 
Assembly must either take it within a week or leave 
their canton in twenty-four hours, the department in 
thirty-six, and the kingdom in one month. The king 
vetoed it. The other bill concerned the establish- 
ment of a camp of twenty thousand men outside of 
Paris, as a reserve for the protection of the capital 
itself. The king vetoed this bill also. 

In ordinary times the king's action in both. of these 
cases would have admitted of considerable justifica- 
tion. The bill against the priests was certainly severe,^ 
and the establishment of such a camp might well 
arouse fears lest the extreme revolutionists would 
use soldiers to destroy the state. But the time in 
which the vetoes were made was unfortunate. Not 
only were the clergy fomenting rebellion, but war had 
begun disastrously on the frontiers. The army had 
been divided into three great divisions, and each 
had moved against the enemy. Belgium was, it is 
true, for a few days invaded, but generally the first 
attempts of the raw French troops against the com- 
bined powers were singularly unsuccessful; the sol- 
diers had fled almost before the enemy had fired, and 
one division, with wild shouts of "Treason!" had 
murdered its commander. Suspicion is endemic in 

^Robespierre opposed the bill. In this as in other matters he showed 
himself no mere demagogue. He had taken no interest in a hysterical cele- 
bration in favor of certain Swiss soldiers who had been released from the 
galleys, whither they had been sent for refusing to fire upon a mob; and he 
had refused to let some Jacobin put the "red cap" of liberty upon his head, 
and had even trampled it under his feet. 



Foreign War and End of the Monarchy 195 

France. It was epidemic in 1792. , It was openly 
charged that the king was in correspondence with 
foreign courts; La Fayette began to be the object 
of others' than Marat's hatred ; his division retreated, 
Marshal Rochambeau resigned ; no man knew whom 
he could trust. These vetoes of the king seemed to 
indicate that he was expecting aid from without 
and was setting himself in opposition to the will of 
the people. And this suspicion was increased by 
the subsequent ill-advised, if intelligible, action of 
Louis in dismissing Roland^ and two other Girondin 
ministers, who had been forced upon him by the 
Assembly. Dumouriez, an exceedingly able soldier, 
accepted the position of minister of war, but with 
condition that the king should sign the two bills. 
The king promised to sign them. Three days later 
Dumouriez had taken office, and presented the bills; 
but the king refused to keep his word, and Dumou- 
riez, righteously indignant, resigned. The situation of 
France thus was critical. Its arms had been defeated; 
its enemies were exultant; its internal affairs were in 
disorder; its king was evidently expecting aid from 
the armies on the frontiers; its queen was universally 
believed to be a traitor.^ 

Under these circumstances, some form of emphatic 
protest seemed indispensable. On June 20th a demon- 
stration was made which was evidently intended to 
terrify the king into signing the bill against the priests 

'Madame Roland had written for her husband a letter to the king in 
which she had outlined the royal policy frankly, if not imperiously. 

''That these suspicions were not ^^ratuitous appears from the fact that 
in March, 1792, Marie Antoinette forwarded to the Austrian court the pro- 
posed plan of campaign. It was a piece of supreme treachery, and under 
any law would be liable to the death sentence. 



iq6 The French Revolution 

and that in favor of the camp of reserves. It was 
planned and managed by subordinate popular leaders, 
though opposed by Robespierre and Danton. It was 
peaceful, and on the whole, were it not for what 
it portended, half-ludicrous. The original plan of 
Santerre and Petion, the mayor of Paris, seems to 
have been for a huge delegation to carry a petition 
to the Assembly, then to plant a liberty tree in honor 
of the Oath of the Tennis Court, and then to go home. 
Events proceeded at first without great disorder. The 
crowd from the poorest wards marched through the 
Assembly hall, under the inspiring banners of a pair 
of short breeches on a pole, and a calf's heart, labeled 
"The heart of an aristocrat," on a pike. Then in some 
way not understood it was allowed to enter the Palace 
of the Tuileries. It marched through the royal apart- 
ments howling ''Down with Monsieur Veto! Monsieur 
Veto to the devil I" The king stood in a window 
recess, and put the "red cap" on his head; the queen 
barricaded herself and the dauphin behind a table and 
fat Santerre, the dauphin also wearing a red liberty 
cap. The crowd was rude, but it was good-natured, 
offering Louis a drink from a black bottle, huzzaing 
for the dauphin, and finally for the king. It was sim- 
ply a threat. But what it might have become but for 
the stolid courage of Louis and the dignity of the 
queen it is not hard to guess. One gets a new respect 
for the personal bearing of both Louis and Marie 
Antoinette from this day on; neither of them was 
lacking a whit in courage. When Louis was asked by 
a grenadier if he was afraid, he replied: "Afraid! 
Certainly not; put your hand on my heart and feel 



Foreign War and End of the Monarchy 197 

it beat." The queen, addressed by one of the women 
who hung on the outskirts of the crowd, answered so 
kindly and so majestically that the woman burst into 
tears. Indeed the whole affair produced a short-lived 
reaction in favor of the king. The queen's treachery 
was of course unknown, and Louis, though himself 
in correspondence with the enemy, was loud in his 
protestations of his devotion to the Constitution. 
Petion, the mayor of the city of Paris, who had cer- 
tainly been concerned in the affair and had not taken 
any steps to preserve order, was suspended from office, 
and La Fayette came hurrying on from the frontier 
to demand justice against the participants. It almost 
seems as if he might have headed a bourgeois army 
against the Jacobins. There was good prospect of 
success, but both Louis and the queen refused to be 
saved by him or any other liberal, and he returned 
to his army after having been attacked by the Giron- 
dins for having left it without leave. 

It was impossible that any royalist reaction could 
be more than a sort of eddy in the great flood of the 
revolutionary stream. The Girondins through Ver- 
gniaud attacked Louis both as ungenerous and as a 
cause of the war. The leaders of the people, and 
the people themselves, were so thoroughly imbued 
with the teachings of Rousseau that nothing could 
satisfy them except the end of the monarchy. A young 
deputy expressed this feeling well on June 20th. After 
the crowd had left the palace the unhappy king and 
queen fell into each other's arms. All present were 
deeply moved — this young deputy to tears. But he 
explained this weakness: "I weep, madame," he said 



198 The French Revolution 

to the queen, "for the misfortunes of a beautiful and 
sensitive woman, and for the sufferings of a mother: 
I do not weep for the queen. I hate queens and kings; 
to hate them is my religion." It was indeed about all 
the religion many Frenchmen had.^ 

On July nth the Assembly declared that "the coun- 
try was in danger," and called for eighty-five thousand 
volunteers. The action was not without cause. In 
the coalition against France were Prussia, since the 
days of Frederick the Great recognized as the greatest 
military force in Europe, and Austria, nearly the equal 
of Prussia. There is little wonder, therefore, that 
France, be it never so enthusiastic for liberty, should 
have regarded with apprenhesion this union of its old 
enemies. Reverses, with suspicion of widespread 
treason, it will be remembered, had marked the first 
efforts of the revolutionary armies. The suspicion 
of treachery on the part of the government had 
increased, and with it the fear of coming retribution. 

To France, thus pendulating between a delirious 
dream of popular sovereignty and the fear of punish- 
ment at the hands of an invading army, came suddenly 
the declaration of the Duke of Brunswick, the comman- 
der of the allied forces. Had Austria and Prussia 
deliberately planned to aid the Girondins and Jacobins 
in destroying the French monarchy, they could have 
chosen nothing more suited to that end than this 
declaration which, at the suggestion of Marie Antoi- 
nette, the Duke of Brunswick published in the summer 
of 1792. In this manifesto Brunswick declared that 

'In addition to the general references given above, on June 20, 1792, see 
Mortimer-Ternaux, Histoire de la Terreur, I, 129-223. 



Foreign War and End of the Monarchy 199 

the allies were entering France to deliver Louis from 
captivity; that all members of the National Guard 
found fighting against the invaders would be banished 
as rebels; and further declared that "if the Tuileries 
were forced or insulted, or the least violence offered 
to the king and the queen or the royal family, and if 
provision were not made at once for their safety and 
liberty, the allied powers would inflict a memorable 
vengeance by delivering up the city of Paris to mili- 
tary execution and total annihilation." With this 
proclamation spread broadcast before him, Brunswick 
moved upon France. It was a challenge as well as 
a threat to both bourgeoisie and Jacobins, and all 
France accepted the challenge and answered the 
threat. And the answer was the destruction of the 
monarchy. 

It is impossible to tell just when the plan was 
formed that led to the events of the loth of August, 
but it could not have been long after June 20th. The 
hope of bringing about the abdication of Louis and 
the peaceful or parliamentary end of the monarchy 
was abandoned. In such a supreme affair, however, 
the popular leaders appear to have been unwilling 
to trust the rabble of Paris. They had accordingly 
turned to the departments, and the Girondin Barba- 
roux, one of Madame Roland's coterie, summoned 
a band of men from Marseilles. These men of Mar- 
seilles are commonly spoken of as a band of ruffians. 
Recent historians, however, have shown that the 
band was composed of picked men from the Na- 
tional Guards of Marseilles who "knew how to die." 
On the 2d of July they left Marseilles five hundred 



2CO The French Revolution 

and thirteen strong, with two cannon. Their coming 
was expected, and even the Girondins shrank from 
the violence expected from their arrival. Vergniaud 
wrote a letter to Louis urging rational action. Madame 
de Stael endeavored to persuade the royal family to 
escape through her aid. Her offer was coldly declined. 
The hopes of king and queen were now built on for- 
eign invasion. On July 30th the Marseillais came 
into Paris, singing the hymn that has been the paean 
of revolutions, the Marseillaise, while all France, 
taught the song by their march across the country, 
joined in the chorus, "Rather death than slavery." 
Their arrival was felt to be the beginning of the cul- 
mination of a great plot against the king. The 
Assembly, even before their arrival, had authorized 
a committee to draw up a list of acts that might lead 
to dethronement. The Jacobin Club had been inde- 
fatigable in organizing the different sections of Paris. 
Santerre had promised to lead out again the wild men 
of Faubourg San Antoine. The National Guard was 
carefully sifted, and those who could not be trusted 
to join an uprising were replaced by members of the 
mob. A secret organization, of which Santerre, Dan- 
ton, and Camille Desmoulins were leaders, took charge 
of all the movements. An uprising was planned for 
July 26th, and then for July 30th, but both miscarried. 
All these facts were known to every man in Paris, and: 
the king's friends made every effort to persuade him 
to escape, but the queen would have nothing to do 
with them because they had favored the Constitution. 
The king knew that on August 9th the tocsin would be 
rung, and that on the next day his palace would be 



Foreign War and End of the Monarchy 201 

attacked. He therefore summoned his ministers and 
Petion, the mayor of Paris, and endeavored to gain 
from them protection. Petion declared, with a smile, 
that there was no need of alarm, that the rising would 
all end in smoke, and went home. Mandat, leader of 
the troops of the palace, was the only man who seems 
to have taken any measures to protect the king. His 
chief reliance was on the Swiss guards, who, on the 8th 
of August, to the number of eight hundred, had been 
ordered to come to the Tuileries. In addition, there 
were perhaps two hundred personal friends of the 
king in the palace, as well as several battalions of the 
National Guard — altogether perhaps two thousand 
men, though, as it proved, not more than one thou- 
sand could be counted upon to defend the king. 
Mandat had requested the Assembly to issue ball car- 
tridges for his troops, but his order was refused. He 
thereupon made the best use he could of the resources 
at hand, and stationed his troops at strategic points 
about and in the Tuileries. Thus the two sides, on 
the 9th of August, were ready for the struggle. 

The plan of the secret committee seems to have 
been first to involve the defenders of the king, and so 
the king, in a struggle with the mob, which should 
give countenance to a charge that the king was false 
to his country, and then, after he had been taken pris- 
oner by the storming of the palace, to take the second 
step of deposition by the Assembly itself. Westerman 
was to have charge of the military operations, Danton 
of the legislative. Only one thing seems to have 
excited the anxieties of the leaders of the uprising — 
the precautions taken by Mandat and his evident inten- 



202 The French Revolution 






tion to offer serious resistance. They therefore 
resolved to remove such an efficient officer. Mandat 
was summoned to the city hall; there, after being 
questioned closely as to his plans, he was dismissed; 
but as he was returning to the palace he was seized, 
taken before the secret organization having in charge 
the uprising, and on his refusal to sign an order for 
the Swiss to return to their barracks, he was sus- 
pended from his command, and Santerre appointed as 
his temporary successor. As he was going down the 
steps of the city hall, a crowd of ruffians closed upon 
him and killed him. Whether or not this murder was 
a part of the original plan it is hard to decide. It cer- 
tainly benefited the leaders of the insurrection, for 
the force stationed for the defense of the king was 
left without a recognized commander. 

Early in the morning the crowd began to gather 
about the Tuileries. Although it was not the insur- 
rectionary army, the king was evidently in danger. 
The ministers begged him to go to the Assembly for 
protection. Between eight and nine in the morning 
Louis yielded an uncertain assent, and accompanied 
by his wife, the royal family, the ministers, and a few 
soldiers, walked from the Tuileries to the Assembly 
hall, where he was received decently by the deputies 
and conducted to a room or reporter's box, twelve 
feet square, just behind the president's seat. There 
he and his companions remained for more than thirty 
hours. Up to the time of the departure of the king 
there seems to have been little or no bloodshed, and 
it is possible that the events of the loth of August 
might have passed off as peacefully as those of the 



Foreign War and End of the Monarchy 203 

20th of June. The crowd began to disperse, when 
through some mistake they were allowed to pass through 
the court of the palace. The Marseillais rushed up 
the stairway of the palace, where the Swiss were 
drawn in line. For a moment it seemed as if the 
Swiss would yield to the appeals of Westerman, who 
spoke German, and fraternize with the Revolutionists, 
but their officers brought them back to their duty. 
Almost at that moment a shot was fired; it was imme- 
diately followed by a volley from the Swiss stationed 
in the windows of the palace, and by a charge of the 
Swiss down the staircase that sent the mob flying, 
cleared the court, and captured the guns of the Mar- 
seillais. The firing then became general, and the 
Swiss, though having no commander, being well 
officered and protected by the walls of the palace, were 
doing well. Napoleon Bonaparte, then an unknown 
officer in the artillery, was watching the melee from 
the other side of the Seine, and was of the opinion 
that had the Swiss been properly led they would have 
completely routed their assailants. Three years later 
he demonstrated the truth of his judgment by putting 
a mob to flight almost on the same ground. But just 
at this critical juncture the king, hearing the musketry, 
sent an order for the Swiss to stop firing and dis- 
patched it by a messenger. This messenger neglected 
to deliver the order for nearly three-quarters of an 
hour, and in the mean time a hundred of the insurgents 
had been killed or wounded. On the reception of the 
king's order a portion of the Swiss immediately 
stopped firing, fell into line, and began to retreat from 
the Tuileries to the Assembly. There they were dis- 



204 The French Revolution 

armed and placed for safety in a neighboring church. 
But there were other Swiss soldiers in the halls and 
corridors of the palace, who had not heard the order 
of the king to stop firing, and kept up the fighting. 
When they found themselves deserted by their com- 
panions, they began to retreat, only to find themselves 
hemmed in by their enemies, who shot them down. 
At last the wretched men formed a square about the 
statue of Louis XV., and there perished almost to 
a man. These Swiss were mercenaries, like the Hes- 
sians in the American Revolution, but they were faith- 
ful to their service, and no one of the hundreds of 
travelers who look up at the noble lion of Thorwald- 
sen at Lucerne but shares with Switzerland the 
admiration that erected the memorial. 

While thus the Swiss were being shot down, an 
indiscriminate slaughter was begun in the palace, not 
probably by the organized insurrectionists, but by that 
bloodthirsty rabble that always hangs about a riot. The 
very cooks and servants were murdered, and for hours 
the palace was sacked and the royal stables burned.^ 

From this time began the short but terrible reign 
of the Revolutionary Commune of Paris. Even while 
the Swiss were being massacred this Commune 
appeared in the Assembly and ordered the few mem- 
bers of that terrified body who were present to 
dethrone the king. In answer to their demand, the 
Assembly, in his very presence, suspended Louis, ^ and 

'Ready wit sometimes saved one's life, as in the case of the royal physi- 
cian, who faced his would-be murderers, told them he was not afraid of 
them, and so escaped. The ladies of the court were also saved by some 
one's shouting, "Spare the women, let us not dishonor the nation." 

2 According to Madame Campan, Louis ate so imperturbably and heartily 
while at the Assembly, that the queen felt obliged to apologize for him! 



Foreign War and End of Monarchy 205 

three days later, in accordance with the constitutional 
provision, summoned a Convention to draw up a new 
constitution, Vergniaud, chief orator of the Gironde, 
making the motion. French monarchy had followed 
French feudalism.' 

So far had the Revolution under the guidance of its 
new leaders proceeded. In comparison with Danton, 
Camille Desmoulins, and the leaders of the insurrec- 
tionary Commune of Paris, the leaders of the Constitu- 
ent Assembly were reactionists. They had attempted 
simply the abolition of privilege; the Legislative 
Assembly, under the guidance of the Girondins, had 
sought through war the end of monarchy. At last the 
wishes of the Girondins were realized — a republic was 
to be established. But far enough was this republic 
from that of which they had dreamed, and farther still 
from their planning was to be its future.^ 

^Though neither permanently, for there was to be a Restoration, nor 
formally. No revolutionary movement was more regardful of the letter of a 
constitution. The king was not dethroned, but suspended. An actual 
change in the Constitution, such as the establishment of a republic would 
have been, to be legal needed the work of a Convention. The vote of the 
Convention, September 21, 1792, declaring France a republic, was strictly 
constitutional, and marks the formal end of the reign of Louis XVI. 

^On August 10, 1792, see, in addition to general references given above, 
Mortimer-Ternaux, Htstoire de la Terreur, II, 213-269; Wailon. La Terrettr, 
I, iS-3f; Von Sybel, French Revolution, I, 498-531; Carlyle, French Revolu- 
tion A\. bk. vi. The material is given in great detail in Buchez et Koux, 
Hist. Pari. The best contemporary account of the hght at the Tuileries is 
that of Baron de Durler, one of the ofificers in command of the Swiss. It is 
published by Stephens, Fnglish Historical Review, II, 350 (April, 1887). 
The statement of some writers that Louis wrote the order to stop firing is not 
confirmed by Durler, but he speaks of a written order signed by Louis for 
the Swiss (apparently those who had retired to the Assembly) to lay down 
their arms. Durler himself escaped to England through the aid of a German 
deputy in the Assembly. 

Perhaps as good an expression as any of the spirit of the Parisian masses 
on the loth of August, 1792, is to be found in the Carmagnole, a revolutionary 
song and dance, some of the numerous verses of which are here given: 

CARMAGNOLE. 
Madame Veto avait promis, 
Madame Veto avait promis, 
De faire egorger tout Paris, 
De faire egorger tout Paris. 



2o6 The French Revolution 



Mais le coup a manque, 
Grace a nos canonniersl 
Dansons la Carmagnole 
Vive le son, vive le son! 
Dansons la Carmagnole 
Vive le son du canon! 

Monsieur Veto avait promis {dis) 
D'etre fidele a sa patrie (dis); 
Mais il y a manqu6. 
Ne faisons plus quartie. 
Dansons la Carmagnole, etc. 

Antoinette avait resolu {6is) 

De nous fair' tomber sur le cu (dis); 

Mais son coup a manque; 

Elle a le nez cass6. 

Dansons la Carmagnole, etc. 

Les Suisses avaient promis (Ms) 

Su'ils feraient feu sur nos amis i6is) 
ais, corame ils ont saute, 
Comme ils ont tous dans61 
Dansons la Carmagnole, etc. 

Le patriote a pour amis (^dis) 
Tous les bonnes gens du pays i^is) 
Mais ils se soutiendront 
Tous au son du canon. 
Dansons la Carmagnole, etc. 

L'aristocrate a pour amis (dis) 
Tous les royalist's a Paris i^is) 
lis vous les soutiendront 
Tout comm' de vrais poltrons 
Dansons la Carmagnole, etc. 



PART IV 
THE REPUBLIC 



CHAPTER XV 

THE JACOBIN CONQUEST 

I. The Crisis of August and September, 1792. II. The Sep- 
tember Massacres: i. In Paris; 2. In the Departments. 
III. The Success of French Arms. IV. The Convention: 
I. Declaration of the Republic; 2. The Girondins and 
the Mountain. V. Struggle between the Girondins and 
the Mountain: i. The Attack of the Girondins; 2. The 
Counter-Attack of the Mountain; 3. The Execution of 
Louis XVI. VI. Final Struggle between the Two Parties: 
I. The New Crisis; 2. The Coup d' Etat of June 2, 1793. 

The suspension of the king and the call for the Con- 
vention naturally paralyzed all existing government. 
To meet the need of some executive head, the Assem- 
bly, on August loth, created a Provisional Executive 
Council, composed of ministers whom it proceeded to 
elect. In this new Council, the forerunner of the 
great Committee of Public Safety, Roland was given 
the portfolio of the Interior, Servan of War, and Dan- 
ton of Justice.^ But the real ruler of France between 
the suspension of Louis and the declaration of the 
republic was the insurrectionary Commune, or town 

*In general, see Von Sybel, French Revolution, II, 47-111, 260-296, III, 
54-83; Stephens, French Revolution, II, chs. 5-8; Taine, French Revolution, 
bk. iv, chs. II, 12; Carlyle, French Revolution, III, bks. i-iii. 

'Aulard, Recueil des Actes du Comitc de Salut public, I, 1-4. 

207 



2o8 The French Revolution 

council of Paris. It was composed of men chosen 
without legal warrant from twenty-eight sections or 
wards of Paris, who had forced the original Commune 
to resign, and now ruled as the representatives of the 
lower classes and of the Jacobin minority. Its mem- 
bers were elected from the most radical and desperate 
of the popular leaders, and included Marat, Collot 
d'Herbois, and Billaud-Varennes. Their organization 
may be regarded as the result of the attempt of the 
masses of Paris to take the control of the Revolution 
away from the Girondins, the representatives of the 
departments.^ 

The new governors found the situation of France 
desperate. August i8th. La Fayette, who had 
attempted and failed to win over his army to the cause 
of the imprisoned king, fled over the border to the 
Austrians, by whom he was imprisoned for five years. 
The peasants of the Vendee, already goaded into mad- 
ness by the laws against their beloved non-juring 
priests,^ revolted, with the war-cry, "Long live the 
king I Death to the Parisians!" The Sardinians 
crossed the southeastern frontier. The advancing 
Prussian army took Longwy; then Verdun fell, its 
commandant in despair blowing out his brains; and 
by the end of August the Duke of Brunswick was 
only three days' march from the capital. But Bruns- 
wick was only one of the enemies the popular 
leaders feared. The armies in the field, under the 
influence of the commissioners sent them by the 

*The complete reorganization of the military force of Paris in the interests 
of the workingmen rather than the property-holding classes was a part of 
the same program as the organization of the Commune. 

'That is, those priests who refused to take the oath to support the new 
Constitution with its ecclesiastical provisions. 






The Jacobin Conquest 209 

Assembly, might still confront him. The Jacobins 
knew very well that Paris was full of men and 
women who sympathized with Louis, and who hoped 
for the speedy arrival of the Prussian army. The 
Assembly endeavored to provide against this danger. 
On the 17th of August, upon motion by Robespierre, 
the Assembly established a tribunal to try the con- 
spirators of the loth of August, meaning thereby the 
Swiss and the royalists who had fired upon the insur- 
rectionary army. On the 27th it called upon Paris for 
an army of thirty thousand men to protect the capital. 
On the 28th, upon motion of Danton, a general search 
for arms and suspects through the city was ordered to 
be conducted by the Commune. That body chose 
Marat chairman of th^ committee to which the matter 
was referred, and the next few days he was the most 
important man in Paris. On the 30th the gates of the 
city were closed, and no man was allowed to go out 
or come in; the streets were illuminated, and bodies 
of the National Guards entered every house and 
searched it from top to bottom. "Patrols of sixty 
pikemen were in every street. The nocturnal tumult 
of so many armed men, the incessant knocks to make 
people open their doors, the crash of those that were 
burst off their hinges, and the continual uproar and 
reveling which took place throughout the night in all 
the public-houses, formed a picture which will never be 
effaced from my memory. ' ' So wrote Peltier, of his own 
knowledge. Few arms were found, but three thousand 
persons suspected of sympathizing with the invaders 
and the king were arrested and shut up in the prisons, 
and as they were not large enough to contain them 



2IO The French Revolution 

all, in convents. The Assembly, to its credit be it said, 
attempted to restrain the actions of this over-zealous 
insurrectionary Commune, and even ordered it to dis- 
solve. Robespierre, always the enemy of anything 
approaching anarchy, advised the Commune to obey. 
But in the face of both vote and advice, on the 2d of 
September the Commune resolved that instead of 
dissolving it would increase its numbers to 298, and 
carry out its hideous policy. On the same day, 
while Danton was in the Assembly, the tocsin began 
ringing. Danton sprang to his feet. "That tocsin 
sounds," he shouted, "the charge upon the enemies 
of France. Conquer them! Courage! courage! for- 
ever courage! and France is saved!" The Assembly 
rang with applause, and decreed that every one who 
was unable to march to the frontier himself should 
give up his weapons to some one who could, or be 
forever infamous. But whether or not Danton knew 
it,^ the tocsin sounded for two purposes, both to sum- 
mon volunteers to the Champs de Mars and to summon 
murderers to the prisons. "Can we go away to the war 
and leave three thousand prisoners behind us in Paris 
who may break out and destroy our wives and children?" 
demanded the brutal, panic-stricken enthusiasts for 
liberty. And under the inspiration of Marat the Com- 
mune undet-took to see that this danger was removed. 
It is noteworthy that the first act of the approach- 
ing tragedy expressed the^popular hatred of the church. 
Several carriage-loads of priests who would not take 
the civic oath were being carried from the Hotel de 

^Foran able defense of Danton in this matter, see Beesley, Life of Dan- 
ton, ch. 12; the articles by Robinet in Rev. de Rev. f ran false, Nov., 1882, 
to July, 1883; and by Dubort, ibid, Aug.-Dec, 1886. See also Bougeart, 
Danton, and Groulund, Ca Ira, passim. 



The Jacobin Conquest 211 

Ville to the Abbaye, a convent that was for the time 
used as a prison. Hardly had they arrived when they 
were dragged from the carriages and slaughtered. 
One only escaped, the Abbe Sicard, noted for his work 
among the deaf and dumb. The deed was a signal 
for similar massacres, but in the other prisons there 
was more evidence of premeditation. 

Any visitor to Paris may walk from the quiet gal> 
lery of the Luxembourg along the Rue de Vaurigard 
to the Church of the Carmellites. The guide will 
lead him to the rear of the church, and there show 
him two rooms and a narrow entry — rude, peaceful, 
the last place in which to look for reminders of mas- 
sacre. Yet on the second day of September, 1792, 
one of the rooms was filled with priests; in the other 
sat an irregular tribunal, before which one after another 
of these priests was brought, passed a moment of exam- 
ination, and then — most of them — passed out through 
the entry into the arms of butchers, hired at six francs 
a day. There^g^£jjK^,j»€)rer't8rrible days in history 
than the first four days of September, 1792, when 
France was witliout a constitutional government. In 
Paris alone i7?5T^5^8?^'ris of all ranks were butchered, 
among them 250 priests, three bishops or archbishops, 
one former minister of Louis, ^ and the Princess Lam- 
balle, the intimate friend of Marie Antoinette, whose 
loyalty had brought her from safety in England to 
death and nameless mutilation.^ 

'Montmorin, the friend of Mirabeau. These figures of Stephens, II, 146, 
are given differently by various authorities. Mortimer-Ternaux, La Terreur, 
gives the total as 1,368. 

'^The murderers among other things dragged her headless body through 
the streets, and stuck her head upon a pike. Then they tried to hold it up 
before the window of the queen's room, but Marie Antoinette was fortu- 
nately unaware of the fact. 



212 The French Revolution 






These massacres, though traceable immediately to 
I the Commune of Paris, none the less were the out- 
I come of the revolutionary spirit of no small faction of 
I Frenchmen. The passion for "rights" among the 
leducated classes might result in legislation, but among 
Ithe ignorant and brutal was sure to lead to suspicion 
and violence. "The people of Paris," said the Giron- 
din Louvet a few days later, in his attack upon 
Robespierre in the Assembly, "can fight; they cannot 
murder." But Louvet should have known better. 
The people of Paris could do both. "Do you think 
I deserve only twenty-five francs?" shouted a baker's 
boy. "Why, I have killed forty with my own hands." 
And the Commune paid 173 such butchers, as we know 
from an official list. In itself this shows that the 
massacres were not the product of mere mob-frenzy, 
and how deliberate the proceedings were is to be seen 
from other facts. Wine and food were sent to the 
men at work in the prisons. Benches, under charge 
of ushers, were marked Pour les Messieurs and 
Pour les Dames, and upon them through days and 
nights the "gentlemen" and "ladies" sat to enjoy the 
spectacle! All France was summoned by circulars 
of the Commune to join in purging the nation of its 
enemies and in terrifying the aristocrats. ^ ' ' Apprized, 
ran this circular, "that barbarous hordes are advanc- 
ing against it, the Commune of Paris hastens to 
inform its brothers in all the departments that part 
of the ferocious conspirators confined in the prisons 
have been put to death by the people, acts of justice 

^The Assembly's submission to the Commune was complete. The 
actions of the latter body were simply usurpations of sovereignty, and 
with its rise to power, liberty ceased in France. 



The Jacobin Conquest 213 

which appear to it indispensable for repressing by ter- 
ror the legions of traitors encompassed by its walls, 
at the moment when they were about to march against 
the enemy; and no doubt the nation, after the long 
series of treasons which have brought it to the brink 
of the abyss, will eagerly adopt this useful and neces- 
sary expedient; and all the French will say, like the 
Parisians, 'We are marching against the enemy, and 
we will not leave behind us traitors to murder our 
wives and our children.' " 

And France heeded the call. Atrocities were com- 
mitted throughout its entire extent — atrocities that 
are without excuse, though unhappily not without 
parallel.^ 

Yet it must be admitted that the massacres of Sep- 
tember did what they were intended to do — they stopped 
counter-revolution in Paris, and terrified the bourgeoisie 
into submission to the Jacobin programme. The 
shame of it is that this could be true, and that there 
was no government strong enough to bring the Com- 
mune and its agents to punishment. 

While Paris was thus inhumanly delivered from its 
absurd fears of unarmed prisoners, the victorious 

^Murders of one to eight persons of quality occurred in Meaux, Rheims, 
Couches, Lyons, Charleville, Caen, Gisors, Bordeaux, Cambray, while at 
Versailles one Fournier, called the American, massacred forty-four pris- 
oners who had been charged with high treason and were being conducted 
by him to Paris. The Commune congratulated him on the deed. There 
was mob violence in many other towns. The abysmal brutality of it all 
was inevitable among masses so debased as the proletariat of all 
cities in France. Yet one constantly meets with instances of kind- 
heartedness. Probably the best term with which to describe the entire 
homicidal epidemic is "political persecution." The church allied with abso- 
lutism had taught men the lesson of bloodshed all too well in France and 
neighboring countries. Recall only the Albigenses, St. Bartholomew's 
Night, and the Low Countries. On the September massacres, see Carlyle, 
in, bk. i; Mortimer-Ternaux. Hist, de la Terreitr, ni, i; Buchez et Roux, 
Hist. Pari., XVn, 331-475, XVUI, 70-477 (including the accounts of several 
eye-witnesses, some of whom barely escaped death); Wallon, La Terreur, I, 
31-45. Taine, French Revolution, bk. iv, chs. 9, 10, contains a large amount 
of information concerning the violence in the departments. 



i 



214 The French Revolution 

advance of the Prussians was stopped by the insignifi- 
cant "cannonade of Valmy" — or was it by Danton's 
bribing the mistress of the king of Prussia? — and all 
danger was past. The massacres were forgotten in 
fetes and theaters and receptions. The royal family, 
comfortably imprisoned in the Temple, could no longer 
intrigue, and Paris regained its gaiety. 

Republican France began its epoch with a new 
propagandism in behalf of liberty. All administrative, 
municipal, and judicial bodies were ordered to be 
remade, lest they should be "gangrened with royal- 
ism." "Citizen" and "citizeness" {citoyen and cito- 
yenne) replaced "monsieur" and "madame" as terms 
of address. Savoy and Nice had been conquered 
in September, and by the end of October no enemy 
remained within France. Dumouriez invaded the Low 
Countries, and November 6th his barefooted, ill-armed 
troops, shouting the* Marseillaise, defeated the Aus- 
trians at Jemmapes, and by the middle of December 
the French were masters of the Netherlands, the 
Meuse, and the Scheldt. Custine captured Mayence, 
and threatened all western Germany. By the decree 
of November 19th, the Convention declared that the 
cause of nations was arrayed against that of kings, 
and promised aid to any nation which would rise 
against its tyrant.^ 

But during these military successes France was 
passing through a new period of internal struggle. 

Under the influence of the September massacres 
elections had been going on for that body which, 
according to the Constitution of 1791, could alone 

*This absurd decree was later repealed through the efiforts of Danton. 



The Jacobin Conquest 215 

produce a new constitution. In the Convention, which 
assembled on September 21, 1792, parties were more 
than ever marked, and again show more clearly than 
any other symptom the progress of the Revolution. 
tThe Right was now the loosely joined, mutually jealous 
Girondin party, which had formed a part of the Left in 
the Legislative Assembly; the Center, or Marsh, was 
again neutral/{r"£he Mountain was now strongly repre- 
sented, i. In ft were to be found the leaders of the Jaco- 
bins, and indeed most of the extreme popular leaders 
including Robespierre, Danton, and Marat. Taken as 
a whole, the members of the Convention had been also 
members of the Constituent or Legislative Assembly, 
and were therefore not without experience. Many 
of them, especially in the Marsh, were men of high 
character. Yet again there was an absence of definite 
purpose on the part of the great mass of delegates, 
and again the history of France was to be written by 
well-organized, aggressive minorities — notably by the 
Mountain, among whose leaders professional education 
and philosophical sympathies had not destroyed politi- 
cal energy. 

In the first session of the Convention (September 
21, 1792) all parties united in abolishing monarchy 
and in declaring France a republic, and in due time 
a committee was appointed to draw up a new consti- 
tution. But constitution-making was of far less 
importance than the question as to whether the Giron- 
dins or the Mountain should control the Revolution 
in its new constructive phase. Both parties were thor- 
oughly devoted to the Republic, but differed in many 
details. The Girondins were opposed to the suprem- 



2i6 The French Revolution 

acy of Paris in the state, and favored a decentralized 
government, in which the departments should be 
allowed a large share of independence. The Mountain, 
composed largely of Parisians, believed in a strong, 
centralized state, in which, if necessary, there should 
be, as Marat said, a dictator in behalf of liberty/ Yet 
this divergence of opinion need not necessarily have 
been a ground of strife. The real difference lay in 
the character of the men composing the two parties. 
The Girondins were cultured enthusiasts, incapable 
of organizing a political "machine" and creditably dis- 
gusted with the Commune. The men of the Moun- 
tain, on the other hand, were no less devoted to the 
public weal than the Girondins, and no less philo- 
sophically inclined ; but they were men of action rather 
than words, and knew how to organize and control 
the proletariat of Paris. In consequence, they were 
ready to cooperate with the Commune, of which some 
of them were members. The struggle was, therefore, 
not for liberty, but for mastery; not between the 
privileged and unprivileged, but between the repre- 
sentatives of the middle class of the departments and 
the representatives of the proletariat of Paris. 

The struggle began by the Girondins, who were in 
the majority, endeavoring, in opposition to the Con- 
stitution of 1 791, to obtain a seat on the floor of the 
Convention for Roland, a minister. The proposal was 
undoubtedly wise, but the Mountain opposed it 
strongly. The struggle grew bitter, until Danton put 
an end to the matter by saying that if M. Roland was 

^How thoroughly the Girondins represented the departments is shown 
by the fact that in Paris they were able to elect only one representative 
to the Convention. 



The Jacobin Conquest 217 

lo be admitted to the Convention, Madame Roland 
had better be admitted also! 

The Girondins had in the Legislative Assembly 
attempted to investigate the September massacres, 
and in the Convention they followed up the matter by 
accusing Robespierre of aiming at a dictatorship, and 
by attacking Marat for proposing that very thing. 
Both attacks resulted only in giving the two men 
greater popularity among their constituencies and in 
winning the implacable hatred of the Mountain. Nor 
were the Girondins any more fortunate in their pro- 
posal to give the Convention a guard of three thou- 
sand men from the departments. i.Tt was their fatal 
mistake always to threaten and not to act, to debate 
and not to organize. The very departments they 
trusted were later to be discovered among the sup- 
porters of their enemies. 

The Mountain's attack upon the Girondins had 
the support of the "sovereigns" in the gallery, the 
Commune, and the poorer wards. It charged them 
with being federalists — that is, with seeking to make 
each department in France a separate state and 
the nation simply a federation — and with being roy- 
alists because they were not willing to go to extremes 
in their attack upon the imprisoned king. Yet during 
the latter months of 1792, while the French armies 
were wonderfully successful on the frontiers, the 
Girondins were able to control the Convention. They 
continued to waste time, however, over the Septem- 
ber massacres, which, as Danton said, had become 
ancient history. But one great problem, whose solu- 
tion would determine who really were the masters 



21 8 The French Revolution 

of the Swamp and the Convention, was yet to be 
solved — the disposition of Citizen Louis Capet, ex- 
king of France. Little by little the cause of the king 
and the Girondins became united. Since the loth of 
August Louis had been kept a prisoner in the old for- 
tress of the Knights Templar, known as the Temple, 
and with him also the members of his family. But 
the hatred shown him by the people of Paris was not 
satisfied with deposition and imprisonment. It de- 
clared that he was in league with the foreign invaders, 
and that he must be tried for treason. The Girondins 
were willing that he should be tried, and even moved 
that a committee be formed to examine the papers 
found on the loth of August, but they were not will- 
ing that he should be executed. The Jacobins, on 
the contrary, through Robespierre, declared that, 
traitor or not, the death of Louis was a political neces- 
sity. It is in this light that the trial granted him by 
the Girondins is to be regarded. It is true that new 
evidence, more or less compromising, was found in 
an iron box of the king's own manufacture; but after 
all, the Convention did not have the evidence we now 
possess, and the real grounds on which Louis was con- 
demned were political, not legal. 

Three questions were put to the Convention, and 
each had to be answered by each delegate aloud: 

1. Is Louis guilty of conspiracy? Six hundred and 
eighty-three of seven hundred and thirty-nine mem- 
bers voted yes. Not one voted no. 

2. Shall sentence be referred to the people? Four 
hundred and twenty-four voted no. 

3. What shall be the penalty of conviction? On 



The Jacobin Conquest 219 

this last question voting continued through the night 
of January 16 and the day of January 17, 1793. In 
the galleries was the wild crowd pricking each vote 
with pins in cards, howling, cursing, threatening. 
Every deputy knew his future, and perhaps his life, 
hung upon his vote. Many of the best men believed 
Louis must die for the nation, many timid men were 
terrified into submission. At last, amid deepest 
silence, Vergniaud, president of the day, declared 
the vote. Seven hundred and twenty-one deputies 
were present. Three hundred and sixty-one were 
needed for a decision. Besides 26, who voted for 
death and delay, 361 voted for death. 

Three days later came a final struggle for delay in 
executing the sentence. But the Convention voted 
380-310 that it should be executed immediately. On 
the next morning, the 21st of January, 1793, the unfor- 
tunate man, who, as he told his counsel, had been 
unable during two hours' consideration to discover 
that he had ever given his people cause for reproach,^ 
after a painful interview with his family, was taken 
from his cell and carried to the guillotine. He 
attempted to address the crowd on the scaffold, but 
his voice was drowned in the roar of drums, and 
a second later Louis added another to the short list 
of monarchs who have died like criminals.^ It was 
not merely the fault of the times, so fearfully out of 
joint and so madly bound to be rejointed. There 
is indisputable evidence that Louis had been guilty of 

^Such a statement can hardly stand as correct. Louis had been in con- 
stant communication with the enemies of France. 

^The various orders for the conduct of the execution are now preserved 
in the Carnavallet Museum in Paris. Some good sources declare that Louis 
was allowed to finish his address. 






220 The French Revolution 

unfaithfulness to the constitution he had sworn to jj 
maintain. Yet this evidence was not known to the 
Convention, and even a modern student, recalling the 
unfortunate man's good intentions, and how simply 
and nobly he passed his last hours, is almost ready to 
forget his share in bringing about his own downfall. 

The fall of Louis meant much to the Girondins. 
They had been beaten in their half-hearted struggle 
for moderate action; the radical party of Danton and 
Marat had triumphed. From the trial of the king the 
final struggle between the now comparatively moder- 
ate Girondins and the Mountain increased daily. 

There was little excuse for the struggle. France 
needed united leaders rather than party struggles. 
England, under the influence of Burke, and angry at 
the loss of trade monopolies through the opening of 
the Scheldt to unrestricted commerce, had been grow- 
ing increasingly hostile to the Revolution, and on 
December 31, 1792, had refused to recognize the 
minister of the French Republic. More overt acts of 
hostility followed, and February ist the Convention 
declared war against England and Holland; and 
March 7th against vSpain. A levy of three hundred 
thousand men was laid upon the nation, and commis- 
sioners with unlimited powers were sent to quiet the 
rapidly disintegrating departments. Nevertheless, 
the future darkened. On March 9th the great coali- 
tion of all Europe was formed against France; two 
days later the peasants of the Vendee as one man 
rose in arms against forced service in the army of a 
republic they hated because of its treatment of the 
church; March i8th came the disastrous defeat of 



The Jacobin Conquest 221 

Dumouriez at Neerwinden ; on April 4th came the news 
that Custine had abandoned Mayence, and, what was 
more appalling, that Dumouriez had gone over to the 
enemy. It was no time for dissensions. Divided coun- 
sels might destroy the state. The real greatness of 
Danton appears at this crisis. In his speech of March 
loth he said: "What matters my reputation? May 
France be free and my name forever sullied! .... 
Let us fight. Let us conquer our liberty. Extend your 
energies in every direction. Let the rich listen to 
my words. Our conquests must pay our debts, or 
else the rich will have to pay them before long. The 

situation is a cruel one We must break out 

of the situation by a great effort. Let us conquer 
Holland. Let us reanimate the republican party in 
England. Let us make France march forward, and 
we shall go down glorious to posterity. Fulfill your 
great destiny. No more debates, no more quarrels, 
and the country is saved." 

But with a foolish arrogance of superiority the 
Girondins, notwithstanding many offers on the part 
of Danton, whose whole interest lay in saving France 
from the foreigner, refused to unite with his party, 
charging it with being stained with the blood of the 
September massacres. Such a refusal was unfortu- 
nate both for France and themselves. The Giron- 
dins, although they still were able to control a majority 
of the house, were incapable of bringing any sort of 
success to their arms, or order to the state. There 
is, indeed, scarcely a measure of importance traceable 
to them during the months of their leadership, and 
their attack upon the Mountain was no more suicidal 



[ 



222 The French Revolution 

for themselves than dangerous to France. They 
justly fell before a party which at heart was no more 
revolutionary, but which saw the need of the moment 
and was preeminently the party of action. 

The final struggles came about through an effort 
to control the agitators of Paris by a committee of 
twelve, but even more immediately by a new attack 
upon Marat, who had stung the Girondins to madness 
by nicknaming them "the little statesmen." The 
Girondins were able to bring about a vote to send 
Marat before the newly established revolutionary 
tribunal — only to have him promptly and unanimously 
acquitted by judges who were by no means the crea- 
tures of the Mountain. 

The month of May was devoted to preparations for 
the last struggle. The Girondins were divided among 
themselves and averse to extreme measures. The 
Commune came to the aid of the Mountain, and 
again looked to the mob. It was a bitter time, too 
full of complicated debate and voting to be easily 
followed, but the last three days of struggle were 
a French Pride's Purge. Just as the king had been 
brought to Paris by insurrection, as he had been 
intimidated and at last deposed by insurrection, so 
now the party of moderation — or better, inaction — 
was to be intimidated and deposed by insurrection. 
On May 31st and June ist the Commune attempted to 
bring about the fall of the Girondins, but failed, 
once because the Convention unexpectedly adopted 
measures intended to precipitate disturbance, and 
once because Saturday was pay-day, and the poorer 
sections preferred wages to riots. But on Sunday, 



The Jacobin Conquest 223 

June 2d, plans were better laid. A special troop of 
roughs was hired at forty sous per day, and together 
with other armed men, formed into a sort of insurrec- 
tionary army. Backed by this force, the Commune, 
through its representatives, demanded that the Con- 
vention vote the arrest of about thirty-seven of its 
members, including twenty-two prominent Girondins, 
This demand was refused. 

Thereupon the Convention was surrounded by armed 
men. In solemn procession, with the president at their 
head, the deputies went forth to reconnoiter. They 
found that there was no mistake; they were all pris- 
oners. In the presence of soldiers, Marat summoned 
the deputies to return to their seats. Couthon, with 
partiotic cynicism said: "You see, gentlemen, that 
you are respected and obeyed by the people, and that 
you can vote on the question which is submitted to 
you. Lose no time, then, in complying with their 
wishes." Unable to leave their hall, tired of the 
prolonged struggle, quieting their consciences by not 
voting at all, the great majority of the Convention 
allowed the Mountain to vote that thirty-one deputies 
should be put under arrest. They were not imprisoned, 
but were allowed to go about at will. But they no 
longer had a voice in the Convention, and with their 
expulsion the triumph of the Mountain was complete. 
The party of inefficient theorists, the champions of 
an impossible nation composed of thousands of all 
but independent municipalities, had gone down before 
the party of action, at once the idols of a "sovereign" 
people and the champions of a centralized government 
compared with which Bourbon absolutism was consti- 
tutional monarchy. At last France was to be governed. 



CHAPTER XVI 

the reign of terror as a political experi 
ment' 

I. The Immediate Effects of the Coup d' Etat oi June 2, 1793. 
II. The Circumstances Giving Rise to the Reign of Terror: 
I. The Crisis in France; 2. The Supposed Failure of Ordi- 
nary Bases of Constitutional Government; 3. The Terror 
not Anarchic. III. The Terror: i. Instituted by the Organ- 
ization of the Committee of Public Safety; 2, The Govern- 
ment Declared Revolutionary. IV. The Instruments of 
the Terror: i. The Committee of Public Safety; 2. The 
Committee of General Security; 3. The Revolutionary 
Tribunal, the Sans-Culotte Army, the Local Tribunals; 
4. The "Deputies on Mission"; 5. The Terrorists' Prin- 
ciple Definitely Stated. 

The immediate results of the coup d'etat of June 2, 
1793, were, on the one hand, the supremacy of the 
Mountain and of the Commune, but on the other, the 
increase of the dangers by which France was beset. 
Several of the Girondin leaders, including Barbaroux 
and Buzot, left Paris, and endeavored to head a revolt 
of the departments against the Convention. The 
nation as a whole was by no means ready to submit 
to the irresponsible rule of Paris, and four of the lar- 
gest cities of France, Lyons, Marseilles, Bordeaux, and 
Caen, rose in rebellion. In each of these towns the 
Jacobin influence had been supreme, but in each the 
bourgeoisie without difficulty regained possession of 

*In general, see Stephens, French Revolution, II, chs. 9, 10; Taine, 
French Revolution, bk. vii, chs. 1-3; Mignet, French Revolution, ch. 8; Von 
Sybel, French Revolution, III, 84-118. 

224 



] 



Reign of Terror as a Political Experiment 225 

the municipal government and prepared to resist the 
Convention. Could they have combined under some 
competent leader, these cities might have put an end 
to the Commune's influence; but here again the 
inefficiency of the Girondins showed itself, and the 
Convention was able to deal with each city independ- 
ently, while the Girondins themselves were declared 
outlaws.^ This half-hearted effort at civil war there- 
fore failed, but none the less for the time being it 
constituted a real danger to the Convention, and gave 
apparent justification for extreme measures. The 
permanence of the republic seemed to depend upon 
the masses rather than upon the bourgeoisie. So far 
had political indifference done its work. 

The danger from foreign war was vastly greater 
and of immeasurable influence upon the course of the 
Revolution. Had there been no war, the dissensions 
between the Girondins and the Mountain would in all 
probability have arisen, but the Terror would hardly 
have been endured. As it was, France patriotically 
submitted to the Committee of Public Safety, since 
it alone seemed capable of so organizing the state as 
to beat back the foreigners. The awful mistake of 
the Girondin war policy is therefore patent. The war 
brought the Terror. 

When the Mountain, with the aid of the Paris 
Commune, finally, though without bloodshed, had 
suppressed the champions of Greek and Roman senti- 
mentality, and was able to act as well as debate, it 

^Such of them as had not left Paris were subsequently guillotined, and 
those who had gone to raise the departments, after months of adventures 
and hiding, perished miserably almost to a man. Petion, the former mayor 
of Paris, and Buzot, the lover of Madame Roland, committed suicide. Guadet, 
Salle, Barbaroux, and others were guillotined. Louvet returned to Paris 
to visit his mistress, and later escaped. 



2 26 The French Revolution 

saw Holland, Portugal, the Two Sicilies, the Roman 
States, Sardinia and Piedmont, Spain, Austria, Prussia, 
England, united against France; French ports block- 
aded by the most powerful navy in the world; the 
departments rising to avenge the Girondins; the 
French armies everywhere defeated; Dumouriez, the 
greatest commander of the French armies, gone over 
to the enemy; a third of the territory of France, 
including Vendee and many great cities, in open and 
successful insurrection ; the assignats rapidly depre- 
ciating; and throughout the nation misery, poverty, 
and approaching anarchy. No government was ever 
beset with greater or more desperate needs, and no 
government ever proceeded more relentlessly to bring 
success to its armies, order to its domestic affairs, 
food to its poor, annihilation to rebellion. But on 
what could government be based? Not on the con- 
stitutions, for millions of Frenchmen were in arms 
against constitutions; not on the past, for the Old 
Regime and the Constitutionalists of 1789-91 were the 
Mountain's bitterest opponents; not on the armies, 
for generals might at any moment imitate Dumouriez 
or La Fayette; not on the ready assent of law-abiding 
citizens, for the bourgeoisie were enemies of the 
Jacobins. The question was as legitimate as press- 
ing, and the Mountain's answer was Upon Terror. If 
men would not obey government from love, they must 
be made to obey from fear.^ The action was only a rig- 



'See Danton's speech of September 5, 1793, Stephens, Orators of the 
ju ,^/ich Revohition, II, 262; Barere's speech of September 5, 1793, Moniteur, 
Year I, No. 2';i; Robespierre's speech of 17th Pluviose; Buchez et Roux, 



Hist. Pari., XXXI, 268-290; Moniteur, Year II, No. 251; the law of 22d 
Prairial, Moftiteur, Year II, No. 264. For the application of the principle to 
national problems, see Wallon, La Terreur, II, 341-352; Mortimer-Ternaux, 
La Terreur, VIII, liv. 46-48. 



Reign of Terror as a Political Experiment 227 

orous application of the dominant political philosophy 
of Rousseau: the sovereign people must be obeyed. 

It is therefore a fundamental mistake to think of 
the Terror as a carnival of brute passion or the out- 
come of anarchic forces become ascendant. This 
was true of certain days, like October 5 and 6, 1789, 
and especially of the work of the Commune during the 
interregnum of August lo-September 20, 1792, and 
of the work of certain agents of the Convention, but 
utterly false in the case of the government by com- 
mittees between June, 1793, and July, 1794. The 
Terrorists were seekers after order, not after anarchy, 
and while it lasted the Terror was a genuine experi- 
ment in politics — crude, hideous, and never to be 
confounded with the work of the generous idealists of 
the Constituent Assembly; but in a politically igno- 
rant and morally weak nation like France, pos- 
sessing not a single man of first-rate ability among 
its legislators, probably inevitable. It was all but 
foreseen by Mirabeau when he failed to induce the 
court to regard the work of the Constituent Assembly 
seriously and to accept its results sincerely. But 
more than all, it was implicit in the absolutism and 
the morals of the Old Regime. 

The legal basis, so to speak, of the new govern- 
ment was found in the declaration of martial or revo- 
lutionary law for the entire nation. The Convention 
had been summoned to draw up a new Constitution, 
and had fulfilled its purpose when, on June 24, 1793, 
the report of its committee was adopted.^ The new 

*This Constitution was the second proposed to the Convention, the other 
being that of the Girondins, and drawn up by Condorcet. According to this 
proposed Constitution the executive was to consist of seven ministers and a 



22 8 The French Revolution 

Constitution was a codification of Jacobin Rousseau- 
ism. The people were declared to be the seat of all 
power, and the government was to consist of a Legis- 
lative Assembly and an Executive Council of twenty- 
four ministers, chosen by the Assembly. The most 
remarkable feature of this instrument was the referen- 
dum provision, according to which every law of excep- 
tional importance was to be referred to the people for 
approval. In some respects, notably in its municipal 
administration, it resembled the Constitution of 1791, 
but was much simpler. The weakening of the execu- 
tive, as well as the difficulty of putting any new Con- 
stitution into effect during the crisis resulting from the 
war, led the Mountain, October 10, 1793, to suspend 
this Constitution until a general peace, and France 
passed into the hands of the Convention. Singularly 
enough, the practical result of this change was to place 
France in something the same constitutional condition 
as England under the government of the House of 
Commons, the actual executive being not the minis- 
ters, who became hardly more than clerks, but the 
great Committee of Public Safety. That which Mira- 
beau had urged, the sharing of the ministers, as rep- 
resentatives of the executive, in the legislative body's 
deliberations, was now brought about in fact — though 

secretary elected by the primary assemblies, each of 450 to 900 members. 
These ministers were simply to carry out the decrees of the legislative 
body, an Assembly of one chamber. The initiative in legislation was not 
to be confined to the Assembly, but any citizen could propose a new law, the 
repeal of an old law, or a vote of censure of any act of administration, and 
this had to be considered by the Assembly if favored by the primary assem- 
blies of his department. The principle of election was carried to an ex- 
treme, and the Constitution as a whole is a most striking illustration of the 
impracticable spirit of the Girondins. The entire scheme was elaborated 
with the intention of making party spirit and the election of popular leaders 
impossible. See Stephens, French Revolution, II, 530-533; Bire, La Legends 
des Girondins, ch. 7; Guadet, Les Girondins, 228-242, 



Reign of Terror as a Political Experiment 229 

not in name — by the very elements by which it had 
formerly been opposed. 

The Committee of Public Safety was in large meas- 
ure due to Danton's desire for a strong executive to 
free France from the foreigner. It had been appointed 
as early as April 7, 1793, but was of relatively small 
importance until August i, when Danton procured 
*for it a credit of ten million dollars, to be spent 
as it judged best, and the Convention intrusted to 
it the execution of a number of important laws 
providing for the confiscation of the property of all 
outlaws, the arrest of all foreigners not domiciled 
in France, the condemnation to twenty years' impris- 
onment of all those refusing to take the assignats at 
their face value, and the conduct of the war in the 
Vendee. -A few days later the Committee was given 
full direction of the foreign war.- Such powers 
demanded new members, and Carnot and Prieur- 
Duvernois were added to care for military affairs. 
On September 5, 1793, a number of decrees were 
issued, which, as Barere moved, made "terror the 
order of the day." These decrees established the 
Revolutionary sans-culotte army, divided the Revo- 
lutionary Tribunal into sections to facilitate its work, 
and ordered the revolutionary committees "purified." 
On September 6th two men who had been concerned 
with the September massacres of the year previous, 
Billaud-Varennes and Collot d'Herbois, were made 
members of the Committee of Public Safety to take 
charge of Terror, as Carnot had charge of military 
affairs. Danton, though elected to membership, and 
the champion of the Committee in the Convention, 



230 The French Revolution 

would not accept a position upon it. He had sworn 
not to become a member of any executive body, and 
as a matter of fact he was not well fitted for detailed 
administrative work. Perhaps, too, as Marat cuttingly 
said, he "preferred an upholstered chair to a throne!" 
The suspension of the Constitution in October left the 
committee the real governor of France. 

As finally organized the Committee of Public Safety 
was composed of twelve men,^ all well educated, 
three belonging to the nobility and the others to the 
bourgeoisie. Seven of them had been lawyers; two 
royal engineers; one a Protestant pastor; one an 
actor and dramatist; one a law student. Two only 
were Parisians. None of them, if we may possibly 
except Carnot, was in any degree specially gifted 
or fitted for the great task which they undertook, 
but all were desperately in earnest and, in their 
own mad way, genuinely devoted to the Republic. 
Seven of them were poor speakers, and only three, 
Robespierre and his two followers. Saint Just and 
Couthon, a small minority were thorough followers 
of Rousseau. 

The actual work of administration was divided 
among the members, Carnot caring for the army, 
Andre for the navy, Lindet for economic matters, 
Saint Just for constitutional legislation, and Robes- 
pierre for "education" and "public spirit." Each 
member of the committee, however, signed its decrees, 
and it reported as a whole through Barere to the 

^Their names and ages in 1793 were as follows: Saint-Andre, 44; Barere, 
38; Couthon, 38; Herault de Sechelles, 33; Prieur of the Marne, 33; Saint 
Just, 26; Robert Lindet, 50; Robespierre, 35; Carnot, 40; Prieur-Duvernois, 
30; Collot d' Herbois, 43; Billaud-Varennes, 33. Stephens, French Revolu- 
tion^ II, 288-315, gives brief biographies of each. 



Reign of Terror as a Political Experiment 231 

Convention. Until the fall of the Dantonists in April, 
1794, Robespierre cannot be said to have been in any 
sense a dictator. The final step in the Committee's 
control over France was taken December 4, 1793, 
when the Convention decreed that it should be in 
charge of all constituted authorities and public offi- 
cers, and that it should nominate and receive the 
reports of all deputies on mission. Centralization 
could not have been more complete.^ 

Subordinate to this Committee of Public Safety was 
the Committee of General Security, consisting of 
twenty-one members, whose duty it was to maintain 
order in Paris and throughout France. It was com- 
posed of men of honesty and determination, good 
Jacobins, but more friendly to Billaud-Varennes than 
to Robespierre. The chief agent of this latter com- 
mittee was the Revolutionary Tribunal of Paris, 
inaugurated as early as March loth, and whose origin 
may be traced to Danton.^ Its office was that of 
frightening the people of Paris and France into sub- 
mission to the Committee of Public Safety by merci- 
lessly arresting, trying, and probably executing, any 
person suspected of disloyalty to the Republic. It 
was finally reorganized at the formal institution of the 
Terror, on September 5th, and a few weeks later was 
made to consist of sixteen judges, sixty jurors, a pub- 
lic accuser, and five substitutes.^ As a sort of assistant 

*Even the ministries were abolished in April, 1794. A complete account 
of the doings of this committee is given in Aulard, Recueil des Actes du 
Comite de Salut public. 

'The great work on this tribunal is Wallon, U Histoire du Tribunal 
revoluiionnaire . 

^The public accuser was Fouquier-Tinville, perhaps the most selfish, 
cold-blooded brute the Revolution produced. Herein he differed from such 
men as Marat, who were bloodthirsty from — paradoxical as it may seem — 
motives of patriotism and genuine love of the masses. 



232 The French Revolution 

to this tribunal there was established a revolutionary 
army of 5,000 infantry and 1,200 gunners, all sans 
culottes^ who traveled over France with a movable 
guillotine.^ Local tribunals, also, were everywhere 
established, whose duty it was to search out suspected 
persons, and pronouncing them guilty, to send them 
to Paris for further examination and sentence. Nor 
was this all. The Convention, not trusting to the 
energy of the local boards, took upon itself the imme- 
diate control of the most important centers through 
its members delegated for that purpose, who reported 
to the Committee of Public Safety. Two of these 
"deputies on mission" were also in every army, 
watching over the general, seeing that he never 
faltered or showed the least signs of defection. At 
their word he might be arrested and sent on to Paris, 
there to be tried. 

And throughout this simple governmental system 
ran the principle of the Terror: maintenance of the 
Republic by the masses through the daily legal execu- 
tion of genuine or suspected enemies. In October, 
1793, the guillotine in Paris began its systematized 
work, and in that month 50 persons were executed, 
including the unfortunate Marie Antoinette^ and 
twenty-one prominent Girondins. In November 58 
were executed, including Philippe Egalite, formerly the 
Duke of Orleans, notwithstanding he had voted for 

^The guillotine was invented by a philanthropic Dr. Guillotin, who 
wished to substitute in capital punishment an instrument sure to produce 
instant death in the place of the bungling- process of beheading with a 
sword. The guillotine is still used in France. It consists of two upright 
posts between which a heavy knife rises and falls. The criminal is stretched 
upon a board and then pushed between the posts. The knife falls and 
instantly beheads him. 

*0n the trial of Marie Antoinette, perhaps as brutal as any trial in his- 
tory, see Wallon, Tribunal revolutionnaire, V, ch. lo. 



Reign of Terror as a Political Experiment 2^2 

the death of Louis XVI., and Madame Roland, whose 
traditional words on the scaffold were a veritable 
epitome of the republican regime, "O Liberty, how 
many crimes are committed in thy name !" In Decem- 
ber, 69 were executed; in January, 1794, 71 ; in Febru- 
ary, 73; in March, 127; in April, 257; in May, 353; 
in June and July, 1,376. This sudden increase in 
the number of executions was due to the efforts of 
Robespierre to establish his Utopia. 



CHAPTER XVII 

THE REPUBLIC UNDER THE TERROR^ 

I. The Suppression and Punishment of Counter-Revolution; 
I. Preventive Measures; 2. The Vendee; 3. Carrier at 
Nantes; 4. Auvergne; 5. Lyons; 6. Marseilles and Bor- 
deaux; 7. Toulon. IL The Conduct of Foreign War: 
I. The Deputies on Mission in the Armies; 2. French 
Victories. IIL The Administration of the State: i. Poor 
vs. Rich; 2. The Maximtmi and Other Laws in Favor of 
the Masses; 3. The Constructive Legislation of the Terror; 
4. Life under the Terror. 

After the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, his 
widow received a medal struck by the French liberals, 
on which, among other sentiments, was this: "He 
saved the Republic without veiling the statue of lib- 
erty. " The Committee of Public Safety saved France, 
to use Marat's words, by a "despotism of liberty." 
Avowedly the Terror sprang from a determination to 
maintain the new rights which had been gained by 
the Constituent Assembly. That these were by no 
means assured is evident from the threats of the 
emigres and the Coalition, yet it is not probable that 

^In general, see Stephens, French Revolution, II, chs. 10-12; Thiers, 
French Revolution, II, 336-372; Von Sybel, French Revolution, III, 159-2^8; 
Taine, French Revolution, 111, 352-419. There are many historical novels 
covering the Reign of Terror, the best of which are Felix Gras, The Ter- 
ror: Victor Hugo, i7Q3 : Erckmann-Chatrian, Year One of the Republic, 
although the latter is more concerned with the military operations. Other 
novels are Dickens, Tale of Two Cities; Mitchell, The Story of Francois ; 
William Sage, Robert Tournay. The great works are Wallon, Za 7>/<^2/«a/ 
revolutiomiaire; Gros, Le Comite de Salut public ; and Mortimer-Ternaux, 
La Terreur. The most valuable collections of sources are Aulard, Reeueil 
des Actes du Coniite de Salut public, and the Archives Parlementaires . 
Buchez et Roux is of less value from the governmental point of view. 

234 



The Republic Under the Terror 235 

even a counter-revolution could have undone the 
work of the political and social evolution that found 
expression in the decrees of August 4, 1789. But the 
Republic had traveled far from that day. The work 
of the Legislative Assembly had been less that of 
reform than of punishing disloyalty, and by the 
beginning of 1793, as far as the popular leaders were 
concerned, the fear of the loss of liberties had come 
really to mean fear for themselves. Counter-revo- 
lution meant not only the return of confiscated prop- 
erty and the reestablishment of the monarchy; it 
meant revenge. Clergy and nobles were no more 
eager to recover their lost privileges than to bring the 
Jacobins to punishment, and the French defeats of the 
early part of 1793 made the probability of their success 
strong. These two motives, therefore, the one genu- 
inely patriotic and the other personal, lay behind the 
measures taken by the Convention through its various 
committees and agents, while the intense class hatred 
between the masses of the cities and the bourgeoisie 
was an added source both of suspicion and of seventy. 

The three great dangers confronting France in 1793 
were counter-revolution, foreign war, and anarchy. 

As far as counter-revolution went, the measures of 
the Convention were both preventive and punitive. To 
make certain of the loyalty of all citizens, every per- 
son had to carry about constantly a properly counter- 
signed "civic card." As the Terror developed, it 
took ever less evidence to make a person a "suspect." 
Any man who was of noble birth, who had held office 
under the Old Regime, who was a servant or relative 
of an "emigrant," any one who could not show that 



236 The French Revolution 

he had made some sacrifice for the Revolution — all 
such were legally declared to be suspects, liable to 
instant arrest and summary trial before the Revolu- 
tionary Tribunal.^ By the law of April 16, 1794, 
all those who lived without doing anything and com- 
plained of the Revolution were to be transported to 
Guiana. Even the Jacobin Club had to be "puri- 
fied," and its members were obliged to answer the 
question, "What have you done to deserve punishment 
in case of the reinstatement of the enemies of the 
Republic?" 

Actual counter-revolution was punished in a way 
that beggars description. By far the most serious 
outbreak against the Convention was that in the Ven- 
dee, a department of about 2,600 square miles, lying on 
the Bay of Biscay between the Loire and La Rochelle. 
It was peopled by sturdy but ignorant peasants, who 
had welcomed the States General, but who had been 
alienated from the Revolution by the laws against non- 
juring priests. Riots had broken out in 1791, and a 
somewhat serious revolt had been crushed in the follow- 
ing year; but the law of February 25, 1793, ordering a 
levy 671 masse, threw the entire region into actual rebel- 
lion. The Vendeans would not -fight for the Republic, 
and under the leadership of members of the lower 
nobility and self-elected captains of the peasants, 
defeated the republican armies. '"^ In June, 1793, their 

^A good brief account of the laws against suspects is in Wallon, La Ter- 
reur, II, 1-22. 

'On the rebellion in the Vendee, the literature is voluminous. Stephens, 
French Revolution, II, 259 n., gives some of the principal French literature. 
Reference may, however, be especially made to Lescure, M&moires sur La 
Vendee; Chassin, La Preparation de la Guerre de Vendee, La Vendee Pa- 
triate, and Les Pacifications de P Quest ; Jephson, The Real French Revolu- 
tionist, gives a full account of the Vendean war, but is violently partisan in 
his sympathies with the peasants. His work also contains a full bibliography 
to 1899. 



The Republic Under the Terror 237 

commander-in-chief, Cathelineau, a former postil- 
lion, proclaimed the little Louis XVII., then a pris- 
oner in the Temple, king. No quarter was given 
by either peasants or the republican troops, and the 
war became indescribably cruel. The Vendeans 
defeated Westermann, and the new generals of the 
Republic, no longer professional soldiers, but a gold- 
smith, a printer, and a comic actor, were equally unsuc- 
cessful. Even the regular French troops under Kleber 
did not at first escape defeat. By the middle of 
October, 1793, however, the incompetent generals were 
superseded, and the peasants were utterly routed, 
most of their leaders killed, and armed resistance was 
limited to small bands. Then the Committee of Pub- 
lic Safety undertook to punish the unfortunate de- 
partment. Troops were sent into all portions of it, 
and during the first three months of 1794 they 
burnt villages, executed peasants, and spread desola- 
tion as widely as possible. In the mean time the Ter- 
ror had been established (October 19, 1793) in the 
great city of Nantes Dy the deputy Carrier, a provin- 
cial lawyer of no reputation and less character. His 
method was not that of the Revolutionary Tribunal in 
Paris, the systematic but legal condemnation and 
execution of political criminals; the Vendean prisoners 
numbered thousands, and the guillotine worked too 
slowly to suit this republican tyrant. Prisoners who 
had actually borne arms against the Republic, to 
the number of at least 1,800, were shot in batches, 
utterly without trial. Finding even this process 
too slow, Carrier invented the noyades^ or ''drown- 
ings." The wretched men and women were stripped 



238 The French Revolution 

naked, bound, and sent out by companies in old 
vessels, which were sunk in the Loire. Perhaps 2,000 
Vendean prisoners were thus killed within less 
than two months. Then Carrier attacked the bour- 
geoisie^ and 323 persons, including most of the old 
officers of the region and 132 prominent and wealthy 
citizens, were sent to the Revolutionary Tribunal at 
Paris. 

The horrors of the situation were ever on the 
increase. Men and women were bound together in 
"republican marriages,"^ as Carrier said, and thrown 
into the Loire, ^-^he mouth of the river was stopped 
with corpses, and thousands of the inhabitants of 
the city died from the pestilence resulting from un- 
buried bodies, j^lti the mean time. Carrier conducted 
himself most scandalously, making his brief sway a 
continuous orgy. But atrocity which did not make 
toward public order was not in accord with the plans 
of the Committee of Public Safety. However ready 
it may have been to execute nobles and bourgeois^ it 
did not wish the masses to hate the Republic. Almost 
as soon as Carrier's actions were known, the Commit- 
tee's agent, Julien, a boy of nineteen, was sent to 
investigate. At considerable personal risk he reported 
(January 21, 1794) the awful condition of the city, 
and two weeks later vehemently urged the removal 
of the deputy. February 8th, the Committee recalled 
Carrier, and although the Terror continued, his atroci- 
ties were not repeated. The Vendee, however, had 
been driven to new revolt, and was pacified only years 

*It is true that these marriag-es have been denied (see Wallon, Les Rep^ 
resentants en Mission, I, 422, seq.), but they are distinctly mentioned in the 
trial of Carrier. 



The Republic Under the Terror 239 

after by the Directory (August, 1796). Carrier himself 
went unpunished by the Committee, but was guillo- 
tined soon after the fall of Robespierre.^ This was 
the only important case in which the measures of the 
Committee of Public Safety failed to produce the 
desired order, and even here all real danger to the 
Republic was, at least for the time, ended. 

Another royalist rebellion, although on a much 
smaller scale than that in the Vendee, broke out in 
upper Auvergne. It was there that the miniature reli- 
gious war at Jales and a widespread conspiracy of the 
nobility had been crushed as early as 1792. In 1793 
Charrier, an emissary of the Count d'Artois, organized 
a new revolt, which for some time met with consider- 
able success. By May 31st, however, the government 
had taken such precautions that the movement col- 
lapsed. Two deputies were thereupon sent by the 
Committee of Public Safety to establish the Terror in 
the departments adjacent to the scene of the revolt. 
All prisoners who had actually taken arms were exe- 
cuted, and hundreds of poor lace-women were impris- 
oned and killed because they wished to begin their 
work with prayer and, for some reason, refused to take 
the oath of fidelity to the Republic. 

Those cities which, like Lyons, Marseilles, and 
Bordeaux, had risen, partly because of a desire for the 
municipal independence granted by the Constitution of 
1 791, partly in behalf of the Girondins, and partly 
against the rule of the masses, were subjected to fear- 

*At the least calculation five thousand persons were killed in Nantes. 
Stephens, F'rench Revolution, II, 392. Von Sybel, French Revolutton, 111, 
257, says fifteen thousand. For lull details, see VV'allon, La Tribunal revo' 
lutionnaire, V, 326-344; Jephson, The Real French Revolutionist. 



240 The French Revolution 

ful punishment.' October 12, 1793, the Convention 
decreed that Lyons, which had offered the most obsti- 
nate resistance to the armies of the Republic, should 
be annihilated, and the name of its site changed to 
Commune-Affranchie. The decree was never literally 
obeyed, for even Couthon, a member of the Committee, 
was unwilling to do more than destroy forty houses. 
But the Committee could not let the opportunity 
of establishing the Terror in the provinces pass, and 
Collot d'Herbois himself was sent on mission to the 
city. Though by no means the equal of Carrier in 
brutality, with the aid of a sans-culotie army he insti- 
tuted wholesale massacres in addition to the execu- 
tions by the guillotine, and nearly 2,000 persons of all 
classes perished during five months.^ 

Marseilles, because of its importance as a base of 
military operations against Toulon, as well as because 
of its public spirit, suffered less severely, although 406 
persons were executed. Here, as in Lyons and the 
Vendee, it should be recalled, the victims were those 
who had actually been in arms against the Republic. 

It is characteristic of the arbitrariness with which 
the deputies acted that the Terror at Bordeaux was 
greatly mitigated during its later days by the fact that 
Tallien, a young man of twenty-five, came under the 
influence of a beautiful and tender-hearted woman of 
nineteen — a fact that nearly brought him his death in 
Paris. Yet in Bordeaux 301 persons perished. 

^The hatred of these cities was greatly increased by the fact that Marat 
had been assassinated (July 13, 1793) by Charlotte Corday, a sympathizer 
with the Girondins. 

''It should be added, however, in justice to the administration of Collot 
d'Herbois that 1,684 persons were also acquitted— a fact going far to show 
that the Terror in the hands of anyone but a brute like Carrier did not 
rest upon indiscriminate massacre. 



The Republic Under the Terror 241 

But next to the Vendee, the greatest victim of pun- 
ishment inflicted upon those who revolted against the 
Republic was Toulon. There the boiwgeoisie had not 
submitted readily to the rule of the Jacobins, and on 
August 3, 1793, they joined with the royalists, impris- 
oned the two deputies on mission in the city, and sur- 
rendered to the English. Toulon was then held by 
the English and Spanish in behalf of the little Louis 
XVII., ^ was strongly fortified, and its harbor was 
filled WMth the allied fleets. The republican armies 
immediately besieged the city, but with no result 
until Napoleon Bonaparte, at that time an obscure 
captain in the artillery, advised capturing a promon- 
tory commanding the harbor. After weeks of fighting 
this was accomplished, the fleets withdrew, and Toulon 
fell (December 19, 1793). As in the case of the other 
cities, it was delivered over to punishment, and by 
January 4, 1794, as Barras, the deputy on mission, 
wrote the Committee of Public Safety, every one who 
had been employed in the navy and the army of the 
rebels, or the naval or military administration, had 
been killed.^ As in Nantes and Lyons, hundreds were 
shot in batches, four hundred men, for instance, who 
met the deputy Freron at the dockyards, being killed 

'The fate of this little boy will always remain in doubt. As far as cer- 
tainty goes we can say only that he was separated from his mother, and put 
in charge oi a brutal keeper, Simon. On June 8, 1795, a child said to be the 
dauphin died in the Temple. There have always been those, however, who 
claimed that the daujjhin was carried to America. An interesting summary 
of the case is given in Latimer, My Scrap-book of the French Revolution, 
1408, seq. See also Louis Blanc, Revolution fratifaise, XH, ch. 2, For the 
accepted account of Simon's brutalities, see Von Sybel, IV, 320-328; and 
Chantelauze, Louis XVII. 

"The horrors of war were never better illustrated than at Toulon when 
the English ships fired upon the crowds of fugitives who were seeking safety 
in them, in order to prevent overloading. Four thousand of the citizens of 
Toulon were crowded into the English vessels when they finally left the city 
to its fate. 



242 The French Revolution 

on the spot. Freron is said to have even attempted to 
exterminate the entire population, but the troops 
refused to turn butchers, and the sans-culotte army 
succeeded in massacring only about 800 persons. 

These instances must suffice to illustrate the fearful 
severity with which the Committee put down and pun- 
ished revolt. If one looks at its conduct of foreign war, 
its energy appears as relentless, although not as brutal.' 
The first six months of 1793 had seen not only the 
revolt of the cities, but also the repeated defeat of the 
French armies. It was to prevent the threatened 
destruction of France that Danton had been eager to 
solidify the power of the great Committee. The levy 
en 7nasse had resulted in sending 300,000 new troops to 
the armies, and before the year closed France had in 
the field fourteen armies, numbering at least 750,000 
men. But discipline, arms, provisions, were lacking, 
and the royalist officers were justly suspected. To 
meet the first of these difficulties, Carnot turned all 
France into a manufactory of weapons and organized 
a tolerably efficient commissariat department. To 
supply energy, the Convention had recourse to its 
policy of deputies on mission. In every army there 
were two or more of these deputies with their eyes con- 
stantly on the generals, and merciless in their demands 
for victory. Never shunning dangers themselves, 
they more than once snatched victory from defeat 
by leading the troops. The generals of the raw 
levies knew that they must win if they were to live. 

'A good summary of the military history of this critical year is griven by 
Mahan, The Influence of the Sea Power upon the French Revolution and 
Empire, I, ch. 3. The best general account is that of Sorel, U Europe et la 
Revolution fran(aise, 111, bk. iii; IV, bk. i. 



The Republic Under the Terror 243 

Failure was interpreted by the deputies and the Revo- 
lutionary Tribunal to mean treason, and not a few 
officers, like Westermann and Custine, expiated their 
defeats on the scaffold.' In January, 1794, it was 
voted that a condemned general should be executed 
at the head of his army.^ And the result of this mer- 
ciless patriotism was just what the Committee sought. 
France, it is true, was on the defensive, and the 
Coalition was but half-heartedly in the war. Austria 
and Prussia were hereditary foes, and as Mallet du 
Pau said in 1792, "Europe had no basis for a gen- 
eral resistance." But after all, the real source of 
the victories of the Republic lay in the new spirit 
breathed into the troops by these deputies. Pro- 
motion was certain, and out from the ranks there 
began to emerge the great soldiers of Napoleon. 
Never were armies more enthusiastic for their cause, or, 
thanks to Carnot, better directed. The success of the 
systematized Terror in the autumn of 1793 was in fact 
hardly short of miraculous. In June-July, France had 
faced absolute destruction. In September, 1793, the 
English were defeated at Hondschoote; October 15 
and 16, Jourdan defeated the Austrians at Wattignies 
and opened up the Low Countries; in December, 
Pichegru defeated the Austrians again, tumbled them 
over the Rhine, and recaptured Worms and Spires. 
During the same time, it will be remembered, the 
Vendee had been subdued, Lyons and Toulon captured. 

^For obvious reasons, this policy was not as successful in the navy as in 
the army. One cannot make men sailors by decrees. Yet the Convention 
attempted it— e. g., by voting death to any captain who surrendered to a 
force less than double his, and, if in charge of a ship-of-the-line, to any force 
unless his vessel was sinking. Mahan, Infltience of Sea Power, etc., I, 950. 

*See MortJroer-Ternaux, La Terreur^ VllI, 247-314. 



244 'I'h^ French Revolution 

The year 1794 found France delivered from all danger 
of invasion, and already carrying the war into foreign 
territory. 

In administering the internal affairs of the Republic 
the Convention and the Committee of Public Safety 
were seriously handicapped by the expenditure required 
by the war, as well as by the almost complete destruc- 
tion of commerce. From the beginning of the Jacobin 
period the popular leaders had turned their attention 
to incipient state-socialism, in which the rich were to 
be governed in the interest of the poor.^ After the 
September massacres the personal property of the vic- 
tims, to the value of millions, was confiscated by the 
Commune. The Commune also stripped the Tuileries 
and the other royal palaces of their gold and silver 
plate, and coined that of the churches. All export 
of silver and gold was forbidden, and the Assembly 
began to control the grain trade. "The poor man 
alone," said Robespierre, "is virtuous, wise, and 
fitted to govern." "The rich," said Marat, "have 
so long sucked out the marrow of the people that 
they are now visited with a crushing retribution." 
The rich were distinctly held to belong to a con- 
quered party, and charged with "hoping for protec- 
tion from the Austrians. " The economic policy of 
the Convention grew distinctly socialistic in its ten- 
dencies. "To what purpose," some one said as early 
as August 16, 1792, "is the controversy about a repub- 
lic or a monarchy? Create a government which will 
raise the poor man above his petty wants, and deprive 

^On the inner condition of France during the Terror, see Goncourt, His- 
toire de la Societe fraiifaise pendant la Revolution' Williams, Sketches of 
Manners, etc., in the French Republic; Wallon, La Terreur, I, 168-178; 
II, 341-352. 



The Republic Under the Terror 245 

the rich man of his superfluity, and you will thereby 
restore a perfect equilibrium." In fact, just as the 
Constituent Assembly destroyed the inequalities aris- 
ing from the privileges of the Old Regime, the repre- 
sentatives of the people in the Convention endeavored 
to destroy the inequalities arising from wealth. 
The Legislative Assembly had confiscated the estates 
of the emigres^ and to help the sans-culoUes offered 
them for sale in lots of two and three acres, to be paid 
for in small annual installments. A few weeks later 
(September 25-28) the Convention abolished all ground 
rents without compensation.^ In May, a forced loan 
of $200,000,000 was levied on the rich, despite the 
opposition of the Girondins.'^ The assignats, which 
had depreciated to less than a sixth of their face 
value, were ordered to be taken at par under penalty 
of death. Twenty-five million francs were levied 
upon the clergy, nobility, and corporations of the 
recently conquered territory of Belgium. The ten- 
dency of speculators to take advantage of the block- 
ade and the great demand for grain, and so raise its 
price, was met by the law of the Maximiwi (May 4, 
1793), which declared that grain and flour should be 
sold at prices to be fixed by each Commune.^ Later 
laws, with the aid of elaborate statistical tables, 
applied the principle to ail articles of food, and offend- 
ers were punished with death. When farmers and 
dealers refused to put their goods on sale at the legal 

'Von Sybel (II, 67) estimates the value of the landed property disposed 
of by these decrees at $1,200,000,000. 

^See Mortimer-Ternaux, La Terreur, VIII, 332, Stourm, Fmances de 
fAncten Regime et de la Revolution, II, 369-377. 

^The law of Sept. 11, 1793, fixed the rate at that of 1790, plus one-third. 



246 The French Revolution 

prices, the sans-culotte army dragged the unfortunate 
men before the Revolutionary Tribunal. Further 
laws limited the amount of bread one could buy, and 
made men and women stand in line at the bakeries. 
To prevent food being purchased before its arrival in 
Paris, the mayor threatened to do nothing to prevent 
the entire city's starving. Thanks to an abundant 
harvest in 1793, as well as to this legislation, so utterly 
in violation of ordinary economic laws, the prole- 
tariat of the cities was in a measure furnished with 
food, but the economic condition of France remained 
desperate. Agriculture suffered, with a million men 
taken from the fields to serve in the army, food sold at 
the maximum was poor and scarce, and the punishment 
inflicted on the cities had been the finishing blow to 
commerce and manufactures. The bourgeois were the 
chief sufferers, for the Convention cared for the masses. 
Their needs were provided for by assuring all good 
sans-culottes forty sous per day for attending the assem- 
blies of their sections,^ and by the law establishing a 
paid revolutionary sa7is-c2dotte army. At the same time, 
in direct violation of the grand watchwords, "Liberty 
and Equality," which were oftenest in men's mouths, 
and which the Commune of Paris had ordered every 
householder to inscribe over his door, and yet, as it 
believed, in the interest of the nation at large, the Com- 
mittee of Public Safety suppressed freedom of thought, 
opened letters, instituted a secret police, destroyed 
the right of trial by jury.^ Nor did the radicals of the 

^For instance, 1,200 were supposed to be in attendance every day at each 
section in Paris. As matter of fact about 300 would be present and answer 
for those absent. 

''For reports of this police during the Terror, see Schmidt, Tableaux de 
la Revolution franfaise, H, 99-220. 



The Republic Under the Terror 247 

Convention stop here. Their passion for regenerating 
every element in French life drove them to absurd 
extremes. They would have nothing that had belonged 
to the hated Old Regime. Every man was to be called 
"Citizen" rather than "Monsieur." The statues of 
the kings in the great church of St. Denis were muti- 
lated, and the royal bones thrown into a ditch and 
covered with quicklime. For the same reason the 
calendar was changed. The year was divided into 
twelve months, each containing three weeks of ten 
days {decades)^ every tenth day {decadt) being for 
rest; the names of the months were changed, and the 
era made to date from the establishment of the Repub- 
lic, September 21, 1792.^ 

Quite as revolutionary was the Convention's treat- 
ment of religion. The philosophy of the day and the 
struggle over the non-juring priests had made the 
Jacobins fierce haters of Christianity, and among 
the necessities of the regenerate nation and the new 
epoch they were establishing was a new religion. On 
November 7, 1793, Gobel, the Bishop of Paris, and his 
chief ecclesiastics appeared in the Convention and 
solemnly abjured the Christian faith. Their action 
was emulated by many of the sections of Paris. ^ As to 
what the new religion should be, the Commune and the 
Committee of Public Safety differed, but until Robes- 
pierre's brief supremacy, the Commune was able to 

^The names of these months were (beginning September 22d) Vende- 
miaire (vintage-month), Brutnaire (fog-month), Frimaire (frost-month) 
Nivose (snow-month), Pluviose (rain-month), Ventose (wind-month), Ger- 
minal (bloom-month), Floreal (tiower-montn), Prairial (meadow-month). 
The five extra days were called sans-culottides, and were holidays. 

^Gobel himself may possibly, as Thiers asserts, have renounced only 
his ordination vows, but this qualification is not to be extended to his fol- 
lowers. 



248 The French Revolution 

carry out its plans. As usual with this party of bru- 
tality, they were coarse and irrational. On November 
10, 1793, the Convention established the Worship of 
Reason. Decked out in red liberty caps, the deputies 
went in a body to the cathedral of Notre Dame,^ and 
consecrated it to the Goddess of Reason, whose repre- 
sentative, a beautiful actress, sat on the altar, while 
women of the town danced the Carmagnole in the nave. 
Then the "service" in the noble church degenerated 
into a shameless orgy. 

This atheistic debauch was approved neither by the 
people at large, nor the Convention as a whole, nor 
even by all the Jacobin minority. It was one result of 
the influence of the Commune of Paris, under the lead 
of Hebert. As Robespierre and the Committee of 
Public Safety gained influence, the cult of Reason was 
repressed, and France recalled to the better but no 
less revolutionary and anti-Christian worship of the 
Supreme Being. Even while "Reason" was being 
worshiped and most churches were closed'^ through- 
out France, in the few left open thousands of faithful 
women still worshiped as catholic Christians. 

All of this legislation must be traced to a hatred 
of the Old Regime, and much of it to a desperate 
attempt to maintain order. There were other laws of 
a far different sort established by the Committee of 

'Desecration of the churches by the Jacobins was common. At Lyons, 
during a festival given in honor of Chalier, a donkey was adorned with a 
mitre, made to drink out of a consecrated cup with a crucifix and Bible 
tied to his tail. Marat's heart was placed on a table in the Cordelier Club 
as an object of reverence. See Aulard, Le Culte de la Raisoit et le Culte de 
V Etre Supreme. 

2The Jacobin opposition to the churches may be seen from a request 
of the Society (December 25, i793) that the Convention decree that in every 
town of four thousand inhabitants there should be built a hall where edifying 
spectacles could be given to help the people "forget the tricks of the priests." 
Schmidt, Tableaux, etc., II, i35, 136. 



The Republic Under the Terror 249 

Public Safety the value of which one need not be an 
apologist of the Terror to appreciate. It is true, some 
of the proposals of Robespierre and Saint-Just were 
absurd, even for admirers of Rousseau and classical 
antiquity. A society in which there should be no 
servants, and no gold or silver vessels; in which boys 
from five to twelve and girls from five to eleven should 
be brought up hi common at the expense of the 
Republic, and in which no child under sixteen years 
of age should eat meat; in which divorce should be 
free to all; in which friendship should be a public 
institution, every citizen being bound on attaining 
his majority to publish the names of his friends, 
or having none, to be banished; and in which the 
friends of a criminal should be banished — such a 
society even the Terror itself could hardly hope to 
establish. But if these men of blood were visionary, 
they must also be credited with having conceived many 
of those great social reforms that give value to modern 
life. While England and America imprisoned men for 
debt, the Convention abolished the practice; first of 
all sovereign powers it abolished negro slavery; in 
advance of even modern states, it protected the wife's 
claim upon property held in common with the husband ; 
it first of all European governments outlined a system 
of public education, in which were included common 
schools,^ manual training schools, technical schools, 
universities, a conservatory of arts, museums, and a 
polytechnic institute; pensions were given the needy; 

^Children were to be taught to read by using; the Declaration of Rights 
and the Constitution of 1793. Indeed the entire educational system was 
centered about patriotism. Boys were to be trained as soldiers, but, during 
harvest time, were to work in the fields. See Duruy, U Instruction Publique 
et la Revolution^ esp. 164-172. 



250 The French Revolution 

and, finally, that Code which Napoleon regarded as his 
greatest contribution to posterity, and which has been 
such "an agent in guaranteeing political freedom upon 
the Continent of Europe, was itself begun and to a 
considerable degree completed by the Terrorists. 

It is easy to say with Burke that during the Terror 
Frenchmen were of two classes, executioners and vic- 
tims, but in the light of these facts the statement is 
quite untrue. The Terror was simply the frightful 
basis of a government looking toward an ideal state. 
No government ever worked harder for the good of 
the masses, and almost without exception the mem- 
bers of the great Committee were neither peculators 
nor bribe-takers. Robespierre and his few friends 
were poor and absolutely incorruptible. Nor was the 
Reign of Terror without its brighter side. The pris- 
ons were full of "suspects," but sad as was their fate, 
a merely cursory reading of the newspapers of the 
time, or of the reports of the secret police upon the 
state of Paris, shows that after the fear of foreign 
invasion had passed, life went on in Paris and in most 
of France much as before. Theaters were crowded, 
new books were published and reviewed, salons were 
held, cafes flourished, the market-women were told the 
Republic had no need of Joans of Arc, and suppressed. 
Indeed, for any one except a possible "suspect" life 
was probably no worse under the absolutism of the 
Committee of Public Safety than under that of Louis 
XVI. One might almost say that the masses of 
France were actually terrorized into happiness/ 

'James Monroe was perhaps indiscreet in his admiration of the Revolu- 
tion, but his observations were made on the ground. Among other things, 
he says, "1 never saw in the countenances of men more apparent content 
with the lot they enjoy." See Hazen, American Opiniott, etc., 124-126. 



The Republic Under the Terror 251 

Criminals dared not show themselves. Men no longer 
feared the lettre de cachet; all were equal before the 
law ; provisions were no longer in the hands of monop- 
olies; military promotion was open to the peasant and 
artisan; lands could be bought by the poorest; educa- 
tion was free to all. 

Had the Committee of Public Safety come under 
the influence of a really great man, France, during 
1794, would almost certainly have gradually returned 
to a normal condition. But here again there was diffi 
culty, for except Carnot and Danton the Republic had 
not produced a man of striking ability, and of these 
two Danton was to fall a victim to his own inertia 
and the brief supremacy of Robespierre, while Carnot 
was to lay the foundations for the military empire of 
Napoleon. 



CHAPTER XVIII 



I. The Struggle between the Commune and the Committee of 
Public Safety: i. The Attack of Robespierre upon the 
H^bertists; 2. The Fall of the H^bertists. II. The Fall 
of the Dantonists: i. Its Causes; 2. The Real Issue; 3. The 
Execution of the Dantonists. III. The Dictatorship of 
Robespierre: i. His Relations to the Committee of Public 
Safety; 2. His Character; 3. His Ideal Republic; 4. Ad- 
ministrative Difficulties; 5. The Festival of the Supreme 
Being; 6. The Increase of the Terror. IV. The Fall of 
Robespierre: i. Opposition to His Plans; 2. The Events 
of the 9th and loth of Thermidor. 

The events which had led to its establishment left 
the Republic in the control of two sets of leaders. 
On the one hand were the Convention and its com- 
mittees, and on the other was the Commune of Paris, 
possessed of unlimited power over the proletariat of 
the capital,'-^d dominated by brutal and anarchic 
men, at the head of whom was Heberf. For months 
after the establishment of the Republic these two 
governments cooperated alike for the administration 
of the state and the destruction of the Girondins; but 
by the autumn of 1793 Robespierre began to feel the 
difficulties of such a union, and, after the scandalous 
festival in honor of Reason, as a true follower of Rous- 
seau and in the interest of his own ideal Republic, 

*In general, see Thiers, French Revolution, II, 414-458; III, 1-108; Von 
Sybel, French Revolution, IV, 3-68; Taine, French Revolution, III, 145-168; 
Mignet, French Revolution (Bohn ed.). 234-272. 

252 



The Dictatorship of Robespierre 1^2 

undertook to reduce the Commune to subjection to 
the Committee. 

The struggle that ensued was not without its diffi- 
culties, and, so popular was Hebert, its dangers. It 
began with the ever-ready charge of conspiracy. 
Among the papers of the Committee of Public Safety 
is a sketch of a report written as early as November, 
1793, in which Hebert is charged with a plot to send 
the leaders of the Convention to the guillotine, and 
then, with his friends, to take control of the state. 
The charge was not more improbable than many others 
which had sent men to the guillotine, but Hebert was 
at the time too strong in the Jacobin Club to be over- 
come. Robespierre's enmity was increased by the 
obscenity and lawlessness of Hebert's journal, the 
Pere Duchesne^ and by November his influence in the 
Committee was strong enough to warrant his beginning 
the conflict. On the 17th Robespierre denounced the 
Hebertists as engaged "in the basest of all crimes, 
counter-revolution under the mask of patriotism." 
He even succeeded in getting the alleged conspiracy 
referred to the Committee of General Security; but 
strange as it may seem to those who have been accus- 
tomed to think of him as always a dictator, he judged 
it unsafe to push the attack upon the city party farther. 
He therefore began to undermine Hebert's influence 
in the Club, by censuring his atheism and sacrilegious 
conduct. It was good policy, for the great mass of 
Frenchmen were horror-stricken at the blasphemous 
proceedings of the festivals in honor of Reason. 
Robespierre still followed good policy when, with the 
aid of the Dantonists, he made use of the journals to 



254 The French Revolution 

fix all the atrocities of the Terror and the inefficiency 
of the generals in the Vendee upon Hebert.^ Yet it 
was not until all powers, including the Commune, had 
been subjected to the two committees, and the Com- 
mittee of Public Safety had, in January, 1794, won over 
the proletariat of Paris by a law condemning the prop- 
erty of suspects to be sold for the benefit of the poor, 
that with the Committee he dared to attack its oppo- 
nents openly. Carrier, the Commune's creature, was 
recalled from Nantes; another of Hebert's friends on 
mission was recalled for having spoken ill of Couthon; 
the revolutionary sans-culotte army, the chief support 
of the Commune, was dispersed throughout the coun- 
try; and on March 4th one of the Hebertists was 
arrested. His friends immediately planned an insur- 
rection, but that power which had been theirs as late 
as the coup d'etat of June 2d had now disappeared 
before that of the great Committee. Anarchic patriot- 
ism at last had found its master. On March 13th, 
Hebert and a number of his friends were arrested, and 
eleven days later were guillotined, amid the exultation 
of the masses themselves. 

After this destruction of the party of brutality, there 
was left the single question. Did the successes of the 
Republic warrant a moderation of the Terror as a basis 
of orderly government? Danton, who as much as any 
one man had been the originator of the absolutism of 
the Committee of Public Safety, believed the time for 
severity had all but passed, and, as has appeared, with 
the aid of Robespierre and Camille Desmoulins, had 

'Robespierre himself corrected proofs of the first numbers of Desmou- 
lins' new journal, Le vteux Cordelier, in which "moderation" and hostility to 
Hebert were eloquently urged. 



The Dictatorship of Robespierre 2^^ 

taken the preliminary steps toward changing public 
opinion. His policy had aroused the hopes of the 
better class of citizens, and the execution of the 
Hebertists had been interpreted to mean a speedy 
undoing of the fearful revolutionary government. But 
these hopes were abortive. Unknown to Danton, the 
Committee of Public Safety had determined not only 
to maintain the Terror, but to Jcill him. Even while 
the Hebertists were in prison, Saint-Just, Robes- 
pierre's chief ally, announced to the Convention the 
arrest of Herault de Sechelles, Danton's one friend on 
the Committee. Why Danton did not defend him we 
cannot say; it may have been the belief that he could 
not be condemned; it may be that he was overconfi- 
dent as to his own influence in the state; but quite 
as likely is it that he did not wish to oppose the Com- 
mittee. Whether, indeed, he could have saved his 
friend is very doubtful. Shortly after his second mar- 
riage, when the affairs of France seemed thoroughly 
prosperous, he had been absent for weeks from the 
Assembly, passing the time at his country-house in 
Arcis. This interval had seen the steady rise of 
Robespierre's influence in the Committee of Public 
Safety, as well as the complete establishment of sys- 
tematized Terror by Collot-d'Herbois and Billaud- 
Varennes. The appearance of a reaction toward 
moderation was full of danger for these three men, 
and they determined to crush the party of Danton. 
That the matter was largely personal appears from the 
charges against Danton, as well as his contempt for 
the precise Robespierre^ and his methods, however val- 

' "Robespierre!" once Danton exclaimed. "I will take him with my 
thumb and twirl him like a top." 



256 The French Revolution 

uable he may have regarded them for certain stages 
of the Revolution. Attempts were made by Tallien 
to bring about a reconciliation between the two men, 
but without success. At the meeting arranged 
between them Danton is reported to have said, "We 
ought to crush the royalists, but not confound the 
innocent with the guilty." "And who," said Robes- 
pierre, "told you a single innocent man had lost his 
life?" "What, not one!" said Danton, ironically. 
Whereupon Robespierre left the room. But even then 
the break was not open, and Robespierre drove and 
ate with Danton after he had signed the order for his 
arrest. 

The issue was clearly drawn. On the one side was 
a revolutionist who had favored Terror as the last 
means for saving the state from foreign foes,^ but now 
that it had wrought its work, wished gradually to 
reinstate constitutional government; on the other side 
were a revolutionist who, having an ideal common- 
wealth in view, saw in the execution of its possible 
enemies the only method by which it could be estab- 
lished, and two revolutionists without either states- 
manship or ideals, who hated Danton personally, and 
who had a well-grounded fear for their own safety in 
case of a reaction. Since the second group was pos- 
sessed of despotic power, it was inevitable that they 
should win unless Danton should organize revolt. As 
a good patriot he was unwilling to do this. Neither 
would he flee. "Does a man carry his country on the 
soles of his shoes?" he replied to his friends, who saw 

* "I did not intend the Revolutionary Tribunal," Danton said, when in 
prison, "to be a scourge of humanity, but only to prevent the renewal of the 
massacres of September." 



The Dictatorship of Robespierre 257 

his danger and urged flight. And as he waited inac- 
tive, the agents of the Committee of General Security 
arrested him. 

His trial and that of his friends, among whom 
was Camille Desmoulins, was a matter of form. The 
charges adduced by Saint-Just were furnished him by 
Robespierre, and are either ridiculous or untrue.^ It 
is possible that Danton's passionate defense would 
have cleared him if the Tribunal had not closed the 
hearing and obtained from the Convention the power 
to pass immediate sentence. Then both he and his 
friends were summarily condemned (April 5, 1794). 
"Show my head to the people," said Dan ton on the 
scaffold to Samson, the executioner; "they do not see 
the like every day. "^ 

The fall of the Hebertists and Dantonists left Robes- 
pierre, for the first time, in control of the Committee. 
Even now, however, his influence was not undisputed, 
for Billaud-Varennes and CoUot-d'Herbois were jeal- 
ous of his preeminence, and the other members of 
the Committee were indifferent to his ideals. Yet so 
complete was his mastery over the Jacobins and the 
cowardly Swamp that for something more than three 
months he was virtually dictator of France. 

It has sometimes been said that Robespierre is one 

'For instance, he was charged with having been connected with Mira- 
beau in the latter's connection with the court, with having suggested that 
Robespierre's one female friend should be married, with having misappro- 
priated funds, and with conspiracy. Of the part of Robespierre in the plot 
against Danton, there is indisputable evidence in his own draft of the accu- 
sations brought by Saint-Just. This is reprinted in Stephens, Orators of the 
French Revolidion, II, Appendix. Hamel. Hist, de Robespierre, III, 454-486, 
attempts to relieve him of all initiative, and even responsibility, in the matter. 

*A full account of the trial is in Beesley, Danton, ch. 29, as well as in 
the writings of Bougeart. Most complete is Robinet, Proces des Dantonistes. 
See also Wallon, Tribunal revolutionnaire, IV, and Mortimer-Ternaux, La 
Terreur, IX. 



258 The French Revolution 

of the enigmas of history, but if one take his point of 
view, his character and career are simplicity itself. A 
mediocre man of narrow, pedantic honesty, a legalist 
in morals and a martinet in action, he was determined 
to found a well-ordered republic upon virtue; but with 
perverted vision he was a slave to consistency, a false 
judge of other men's motives, ready to kill any person 
who stood between him and the achievement of his 
Utopia. He would found a kingdom of heaven accord- 
ing to the method of the Tempter. 

The process by which France was to be founded 
anew upon virtue, religion, and the philosophy of Rous- 
seau was outlined in a series of the most remarkable 
speeches and decrees the Revolution produced. On 
the one hand "conspirators" were driven from points 
of danger by a decree compelling all ex-nobles to 
leave Paris and frontier towns within ten days; and on 
the other, the turbulent supporters of the defeated 
Commune, the sans-culotte army, were disbanded. The 
centralization of France was completed by removing 
all the ministers and distributing their duties among 
twelve commissions appointed by the Committee of 
Public Safety on the nomination of Robespierre. The 
irregular revolutionary committees throughout the 
nation were abolished, and their places supplied by 
a sort of police, in immediate communication with the 
committees of Paris. The capital itself was controlled 
by closing all clubs and societies except the Jacobins.^ 
April 15th, "in order to strengthen the fabric of gov- 
ernment, to rouse the servants of the state from their 
negligence and brutality and their indulgence to 

'The Old Cordeliers did exist, but was of no significance. 



The Dictatorship of Robespierre 259 

traitors and scoundrels,"' all revolutionary tribunals 
in the departments were dissolved, and justice, like 
government, was centralized in Paris. 

With all powers thus within its control, the Com- 
mittee of Public Safety proceeded to "create those civil 
institutions, which are the only secure foundation of 
the state. " In a speech of April 20th, Billaud-Varennes 
declared that "the state must lay hold of every 
human being at his birth, and direct his education 
with a powerful hand"; and the Convention decreed 
that "it is necessary to refashion completely a people 
one wishes to make free — to destroy its prejudices, 
alter its habits, limit its necessities, eradicate its vices, 
and purify its desires. Strong forces, therefore, must 
be set in motion to develop the social virtues and to 
repress the passions of men," May 7th Robespierre 
delivered a speech to the Convention upon morality 
and religion as the foundation of a republic.^ In it 
he showed himself again the follower of Rousseau. 
"In the eyes of the legislator," he declared, "all that 
is beneficial and good in practice is truth. The idea 
of the Supreme Being and of the immortality of the 
soul is a continual recall to justice; it is therefore 
social and republican." In response to his desire, the 
Convention decreed that the French people acknowl- 
edged the existence of the Supreme Being and the 
immortality of the soul; that the worship most worthy 
of the Supreme Being is the practice of the duties of 
man ; that the decadis^ or revolutionary Sundays, should 
be devoted to festivals in honor of different days and 

^Speech of Saint-Just on that date. 

^The speech is printed in full in Stephens, Orators of the French Revo- 
lution, II, 390, seq. 



26o The French Revolution 

virtues beneficial to man; and that there should be 
held a great festival in honor of the Supreme Being on 
June 8th. The decrees were received by the Jacobins 
with enthusiasm, and the Committee of Public Safety 
ordered that the words "To Reason," which the 
Hebertists had caused to be printed on the churches, 
should be replaced by the words "To the Supreme 
Being." At the same time religious liberty was 
granted, at least in name, to all. 

While thus Robespierre was laying, as he believed, 
the foundation of his new commonwealth, the actual 
economic situation of France received most careful 
attention. French arms, it is true, had continued to be 
successful, and with the exception of England, which, 
under Pitt, was passing through a period of reaction 
against all liberalism, there was no member of the dis- 
cordant Coalition that would not have welcomed peace. ^ 
At home, however, the Committee found complications 
inevitably resulting from the laws of the maximum and 
the steady issue of assignats. Peasants would not sell 
their grain, shopkeepers retired from business, the coun- 
try towns diverted the food supply of the capital. Yet 
it did what it could ; the amount of meat one could pur- 
chase was limited by law, certain exceptions were made 
in the application of the maximum^ and a beginning 
was made of refunding the national debt bequeathed 
the Republic by the monarchy.^ Nature assisted 
these efforts with an unusual harvest, while, despite the 
blockade, American vessels exchanged grain for wine 

»See Von Sybel, French Revolution, III, 439-478; Sorel, L' Europe et la 
Revolution franfaise, IV, liv. i, ch. 3, esp. 91-101. 



'^See Vunrer, Histoire de la Dette publique, I, ch. 13. In capitalizing the 
annuities at five per cent, the Convention was obviously reducing them, but 
it characteristically left those of aged people unchanged. 



The Dictatorship of Robespierre 261 

and articles of manufacture, and Switzerland, which 
maintained neutrality, supplied the country constantly 
with cattle and horses. 

On June 8, 1794, the Festival of the Supreme 
Being was celebrated, Robespierre being the president 
of the day. The Convention marched in solemn pro- 
cession to the Garden of the Tuileries, Robespierre at 
the head, dressed in his very best, and carrying, like 
all the deputies, flowers and stalks of grain. There 
an amphitheater had been erected under the direction 
of David, the celebrated painter, and in it Robespierre 
set fire to three colossal figures, symbolizing Atheism, 
Discord, and Selfishness; and from their ashes rose 
the figure of Wisdom. Then, after a speech by 
Robespierre, the Convention marched to the Champs de 
Mars, where a great crowd solemnly swore allegiance 
to the Republic and homage to the Supreme Being. 

How genuine all this sudden piety of the Parisians 
may have been each will determine for himself, but 
there can be no doubt as to the sincerity of Robes- 
pierre. Yet his sincerity did not give him wisdom. 
Had he been a really great man, he might have fore- 
stalled Bonaparte, but as it was he remained a slave 
to the spirit of the Terror, and could think of no 
agent of enforcing his plans except the guillotine. 
Had not Rousseau excluded atheists from pity? That 
he planned to maintain the Terror indefinitely, or even 
at all after his opponents had been removed, is improb- 
able. "We have it on good authority that after he had 
removed the factions he was forced to fight, he meant 
to return to a system of order and moderation.^ But 

^Napoleon's quotation of the words of Cambaceres. 



262 The French Revolution 

even with this concession, his method can only be 
condemned. On the 226. of Prairial (June 8th), 
the very day of the Festival of the Supreme Being, 
he caused Couthon to propose to the Convention the 
most terrible law ever put into force among civilized 
peoples. The Revolutionary Tribunal was to be 
divided into four sections, one to sit every day; it was 
to punish with death all "enemies of the people," and 
the provisions of the law made this phrase include 
almost every conceivable wrongdoer or suspect. The 
two committees, the Convention, the deputies on mis- 
sion, and Fouquier-Tinville, the public accuser, could 
bring persons before the Tribunal. If the prosecution 
could adduce either material or moral proofs, no wit- 
nesses were to be examined; and no counsel was 
allowed the accused.^ 

It was with difficulty that this hideous and unneces- 
sary law was passed. Even in the Committee itself 
there was opposition, Robespierre and his two friends 
being opposed by Billaud-Varennes, CoUot-d'Herbois, 
and Carnot. His constant insistence upon morality 
and religion became a subject of ridicule.^ His vague 
suggestions as to the need of still further purification 
of the Convention aroused the fears of men like 
Tallien and Barras, who knew well that their careers 
as deputies on mission would not bear careful scrutiny 
from the point of view of either terroism, honesty, or 
morality.^ In the Committee he could count certainly 

iThe results of this law are to be seen in the fact that in the seven weeks 
it was in operation, 1,376 persons were guillotined in Paris. 

'"You begin to bore me with your Supreme Being," said Billaud-Va- 
rennes. 

^RoDespIerre fell into a serious mistake when he refused to exempt 
members of the Convention from the law of the 22d Prairial, and at the 
same time refused to name the members he would attack. Every member 
of the Convention feared for himself. 



The Dictatorship of Robespierre 263 

on only two supporters, the fanatical young Saint-Just 
and the paralytic Couthon. In the Convention men 
were already turning against him, remarking his 
pride in the Festival of the Supreme Being. The 
people, too, although they dared not attack him, were 
evidently hating the new regime, in which patriotic vir- 
tues were to be chosen as a less evil than death; and 
among the proletariat, whom he sought to benefit, but 
who now, as well as the wealthy, were being drawn 
into the net set for suspects by the terrible law of 
Prairial, there was a suspicious lack of enthusiasm with 
occasional outbursts of pity. 

All this hostility had opportunity to develop, for 
toward the end of June Robespierre withdrew from 
the Committee and went into retirement, according to 
his apologists because of his despair at the growing 
influence of unscrupulous men like Barras, Tallien, 
and Billaud-Varennes, none of whom shared his ideals 
for a morally regenerate France.^ Whatever truth 
there may be in this supposition — and improbable as it 
appears, it is not absolutely impossible — during his 
weeks of absence a conspiracy was formed against him 
and his two friends in the Committee, under the lead of 
Barras, Tallien, and Billaud-Varennes. The Commit- 
tee of Public Safety was thus divided, but the Jacobins 
and the newly reorganized Commune were wholly with 
Robespierre. Had he appealed to the mob upon his 
return to Paris, he might have saved himself; but this, 
despite the entreaties of his friends, he would not do. 
Thoroughly alive to his danger, however, on July 26th 
he attempted to make the Convention pass a decree 

^ 'Some writers think it was for the purpose of courting a young woman. 



264 The French Revolution 

against his enemies, but was met by an open attack. 
He lost his self-control, and left the Convention. 
Even then he might have crushed his opponents by 
an appeal to insurrection, but this he still refused to 
make. On the 9th Thermidor (July 27th) he again 
appeared in the Convention, and attempted to speak, 
but was silenced with shouts of "Down with the 
tyrant!"' His strength and voice failed him. "The 
blood of Danton chokes him!" shouted one of the 
conspirators. In desperation the Convention voted to 
arrest him, his brother, Saint-Just, Couthon, and Le 
Bas. "Liberty triumphs!" shouted Billaud-Varennes. 
"The Republic is dead," retorted Robespierre, "and 
rascals triumph!" And the one saying was as true as 
the other. 

In the mean time Robespierre's supporters in the 
Commune had made ready the military forces of the 
capital for an insurrection in his defense. He and 
the other Terrorists were released from prison, and 
the troops of the Commune surrounded the Conven- 
tion. It was then that as a last resort the Convention 
outlawed Robespierre, his friends, and the Commune. 

The crisis came during the night of July 27th. The 
city troops filled the great square of the Town Hall, 
and had the sections but risen, Robespierre's power 
would have been supreme. But the National Guards 
would not join readily in the insurrection, and Robes- 
pierre himself refused to sanction a popular uprising. 
"Then," said Couthon, "nothing remains for us but 
to die." "You have said it," replied Robespierre. 

'In a speech on July 22d, Saint-Just had distinctly said that a dictatorship 
on the part of Robespierre was necessary. 



The Dictatorship of Robespierre 265 

The crowd dispersed, and the troops of the Convention 
surrounded the city hall. Then, too late, Robespierre 
relented. The call to arms was given him for signature. 
He had written "Ro — " when one of the soldiers of 
the Convention burst into the room and shot him in 
the jaw.^ Two of his friends leaped from the windows, 
one shot himself, Couthon tried to stab himself. All 
were arrested.^ 

In the building of the Archives of Paris there is 
a table taken during the Revolution from the Tuileries 
for use in the City Hall. Upon this table the wretched 
Robespierre lay for hours, exposed to every insult, but 
uttering no word, waiting his death. On the evening 
of the loth Thermidor (July 28th) he and twenty-one 
of his friends were hurried without trial as outlaws to 
the guillotine. Tradition has preserved the words of 
an unknown old man, who, as Robespierre was stretched 
out upon the plank of the guillotine, shouted: "Yes, 
Robespierre; there is a Supreme Being. "^ 

And with the fall of that shattered head all France 
breathed freer. For if the dream of a republic 
founded upon morality and religion had passed, so 
also (as it proved) had passed the Terror. 

*The fac-simile of this document, with the drops of blood after the two 
letters, is given in the Memoirs of Barras. It should be added that there 
have been efforts made to prove that Robespierre shot himself in an attempt 
at suicide. 

^The most satisfactory account of the 9th and loth of Thermidor is in 
Wallon, Tribunal revolutionnaire. V, 199-255. See also Blanc, La Revolu- 
tion franfaise, XI, ch. 2; Hericault, La Revolution de Thermidor ; Quinet, 
La Revolution franfaise , bk. xix. 

^There is also an alleged epitaph for Robespierre: 

Passant, qui que tu sois, ne pieure i>as mo7i sort: 
Sije vivais, tu serais mort. 



CHAPTER XIX 

THE RETURN TO CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT^ 

I. The Reaction from the Terror: i. Parties after Thermidor; 
2. The Legislative Reaction. II. Problems before the 
Victors: i. The Economic Crisis; 2. Peace with Foreign 
Nations. III. The Fall of the Mountain: i. Anti-Jacobin- 
ism; 2. The Revolts of ist Prairial. IV. The Crushing 
of Royalist Rebellion: i. "The White Terror"; 2. The 
Quiberon Expedition. V. The Constitution of 1795: i. Its 
Provisions; 2. The Two Decrees; 3. The 13th Vend^- 
miaire. VI. The Return to Constitutional Government: 
I. Last Struggles of the Jacobin Element; 2. The Inau- 
guration of the Directory and Councils. VII. Tendency 
toward Militarism at the End of the Revolution. 

After the fall of Robespierre the Revolution began 
to retrace its course, both as regards the spirit and the 
legislation of the Convention. Three parties came to 
be clearly distinguished — the still considerable group 
of the Mountain; the Thermidorians,^ most of whom 
had been Dantonists; and the great body of the 
Swamp or Center,^ now daring to become Moderates. 
In the overthrow of Robespierre the Thermidorians 
and the Moderates had been aided by the enemies of 
the ^'dictator" on the Committee of Public Safety, and 

Un general, see Von Sybel, French Revohction, IV, bk. xii; Carlyle, 
French Revolution, III, bk. vii; Taine, French Revolution, III, bk. ix; Thiers, 
French Revolution, III, 234-245; Mignet, French Revolution, chs. 10, 11. 
See also the novels of Gras, The White Terror, and Erckmann-Chatrian, 
Citizeji Bonaparte. 

^This term is used to indicate those who like Barras and Tallien had 
been most active on the 9th and loth of Thermidor. 

^The spirit of this body during the Terror had been despicably cowardly. 
"What did you do during those years.?" Sieyes was once asked. "1 lived," 
was the reply. 

266 



Return to Constitutional Government 267 

for a few weeks this anomalous partnership was main- 
tained. In consequence legislation began to retrace 
its course. Wholesale execution of suspects ceased, 
and although trials and condemnations continued for 
several months, the terrible law of the 22d Prairial, 
denying counsel to prisoners brought before the Revo- 
lutionary Tribunal, was repealed, and the number of 
executions was small. ^ The irresponsible rule of the 
Committee of Public Safety was ended by the provi- 
sion that one-fourth of its members should be renewed 
every month, and at least one month should pass 
before a member was reelected. This reversion to 
the decentralized government of the early years of the 
Revolution is further seen in the fact that most of the 
powers exercised by the Committee of Public Safety 
were distributed between sixteen independent and 
coordinate committees. To weaken radicalism, the 
revolutionary committees which had played so large 
a role in the Terror throughout the departments were 
reduced to one in each district and to one meeting 
each decade. A bouj^geois reaction from the socialistic 
methods of the Terror showed itself in the decree that 
sans-culottes were no longer to be paid for attendance 
upon the assemblies of the sections. Less attention 
also was paid to feeding the proletariat. The Revo- 
lutionary Tribunal was reorganized, with a jury and 
a proper provision for the defense of the accused, 
while the former public prosecutor, Fouquier-Tinville, 
was arrested, tried, and after some months, together 

*From July 31st to September i6th, of 290 accused, only 14 were con- 
demned; from September 17th to October 21st, of 312 accused, 24 were con- 
demned; the next month only 5 out of 236, and at last, January 20 to Feb- 
ruary 18, 1795 (Pluviose, year III), of 30 accused, none were condemned. 



268 The French Revolution 

with fifteen of his former jurors, was executed. The 
Commune of Paris was replaced by two commissions, 
and the Jacobin Club was ordered to purge itself of 
the friends of Robespierre, to cease corresponding 
with other societies in its own name, and at last 
(November 12, 1794) was suppressed and its hall closed. 
The restriction upon the freedom of the press was, at 
least in large part, removed : amnesty was offered the 
Vendeanswho should lay down their arms; the secrecy 
of letters was declared inviolable; the observance of 
the Catholic faith was again sanctioned, and the 
worst elements of the law of the maximum were 
repealed. In the meantime the prisons were emptied 
of all those who had been illegally arrested. The 
agents of the Terror were not at once attacked, but 
as the reaction developed the eighty-three outlaws of 
the Commune, Fouquier-Tinville and his jurors, and 
Carrier, author of the horrors at Nantes, were tried 
and executed. Those members of the Convention 
who, in October, 1793, had dared to protest against 
the coup d'etat of May 31-June 2, were reinstated, and 
at last the wave of anti-Terror legislation reached the 
proscribed Girondins themselves, and such of them as 
still survived were readmitted into the Convention, 
there to join the leaders of the new movement toward 
constitutional government.^ 

It was inevitable that such a reversal of a previously 
unquestioned policy should sometimes go to excess. 
On the one side the hitherto oppressed bourgeois and 
"aristocrats" suddenly began to play the master. 

'On the Thermidorian legislation, see Sorel, U Europe et la Revolution 
franfaise, IV, 122-132. 



Return to Constitutional Government 269 

The sections of Paris purified their assemblies of sans- 
culottes, and their young men — Xht Jeiinessc doree, or 
"Gilded Youth," — armed themselves with clubs, organ- 
ized in bands, and patrolled the city, abusing the Jaco- 
bins. Revolutionary songs were tabooed. Styles of 
clothing changed, and with a levity Robespierre could 
not efface, men and women dressed their hair as had 
those prepared for the guillotine,* and to cap the 
climax, gave balls a la victime, to which no one was 
invited who had not lost a relative during the Terror. 
It is not strange that such enthusiasm should attract 
many persons of royalist sympathies, and that there 
should appear no small prospect that moderation 
might give way to a royalist reaction. Here was 
cause enough for a struggle between the Mountain and 
the Moderates. The Convention itself endeavored 
to forestall the suspicion of royalist sympathies, but 
the Mountain not only chafed under the new necessity 
of acting in self-defense, but suspected its opponents 
of hostility to the Republic. Nor is its suspicion 
difficult to understand. So far as the Terror went, 
the Convention had been quite as guilty as it, and the 
Thermidorian party was by no means incorruptible, 
for many of its members were already growing rich 
in ways that would hardly bear close scrutiny.^ The 
royalist color given the Thermidorian reaction, the 
Mountain rightly judged, did not express a genuinely 
national feeling. The people of France as a whole 

'That is, the men cut theirs short or turned it up behind, and the women 
plaited theirs and fastened it with combs high on the top of their heads. It 
IS interesting to observe how so many conventionalities of fashion, like these 
and long trousers, date from this period. 

'^Gouverneur Morris seems to have suspected the Terrorists of the same 
wrongdoing as early as August, 1793. See Morris, Diary and Letters of 
Gouverneur Morris, II, 51. 



270 The French Revolution 

wanted nothing but a republic. Mallet du Pan in 
November, 1794, expressed the matter clearly, "The 
mass of people has begun to forget it ever had a king. " 
In the Vendee itself it began to be apparent that 
if the priests were allowed to minister to the peasants, 
the causes of the revolt would utterly disappear. 

Nor were these the Mountain's only grounds of com- 
plaint. The undoing of the centralized government 
of the Committee of Public Safety had brought France 
into the most serious economic embarrassment. The 
enforcement of the maximum had been abandoned, 
with the immediate result of encouraging stock job- 
bing and every sort of speculation. The assig?iais 
were depreciating with frightful rapidity, and the 
price of food rose enormously.^ With a million men 
withdrawn from agriculture, famine was actually at 
the door of nearly every town in the nation. From 
all over France there went up the cry of hunger. The 
crops in many of the departments failed. Around 
Dieppe the entire population of villages ate herbs and 
bran. In Picardy men and women scoured the woods 
for mushrooms and berries. In the towns the misery 
was more intense The poor were given a daily 
allowance of gram^ but this was sometimes as small 
as three ounces of wheat for each person every eight 
days. Even in cities like Amiens or Troyes the poor 
were allowed only a half-pound of flour each day. 
And this misery, so appalling to men whO; though but 
demagogues, had championed the masses, existed 
notwithstanding the unparalleled agrarian revolution 

'In July, 1705, a pound of meat was worth 36 francs. Bread was selling 
in January, 1796, at 50 francs a pound and meat at 60. 



Return to Constitutional Government 271 

which had enabled the peasants to buy up the lands of 
church and nobles confiscated by the state. It would 
have been strange indeed if the Mountain had not seen 
in it an argument against the moderate regime. 

But probably the most fundamental difference 
between the various parties of the Convention, now 
that the Terror was outgrown, concerned the estab- 
lishment of peace with Europe, of giving France 
a constitution, and thus of closing the Revolution. 

The campaign of 1794 had been wonderfully suc- 
cessful for the Republic. It was not only that the 
raw levies had become veterans, and that the unre- 
stricted opportunity for promotion had brought to the 
front able generals; the leader of the allied forces 
had displayed amazing stupidity, and the huge Coali- 
tion was giving unmistakable signs of approaching 
dissolution. In January, 1795, Holland was con- 
quered,* and a few weeks later erected into a republic, 
which (May i6th) formed an alliance with France. 
This success of the French, as well as its own financial 
straits, its jealousy of Austria, and its interest in the 
partition of Poland, always a hindrance to war with 
France, led Prussia to enter upon negotiations for 
peace (January 22, 1795). On April 14th the Peace of 
Basle was definitively ratified by the Convention.^ By 
it the Republic was assured the possession of the 
Prussian territory on the left of the Rhine until a gen- 
eral peace, and northern Germany was made neutral. 
By secret clauses France was ceded all its conquests 

*It was in this campaign that (January 20th) a force of French cavalry 
captured a Dutch Heet which had been frozen fast in the ice. 

«On the diplomatic process, see Sorel. U Europe et la Revolution /rati' 
(aise, IV, bk. i, ch. 5, and bk. ii; Von Sybel, French Revolution, bk. xi. 



272 The French Revolution 

on the left bank of the Rhine upon condition of com- 
pensating Prussia; for which act means were to be 
gained by secularizing the church property within the 
conquered territory. In July Spain also made peace, 
ceding France Spanish San Domingo in return for all 
places taken by the French. 

Advantageous to the Republic as was the Peace of 
Basle, the months devoted to the necessary negoti- 
ations had shown the deep-seated hostility of the 
Mountain to any measure looking toward the increased 
power of the Moderates. Both the Thermidorians 
and the Mountain knew that their supremacy was pos- 
sible only as long as war continued, and it was inevi- 
table that there should again arise a struggle between 
the Mountain and the Moderates for the mastery of 
the Republic. But now the issue was to be reversed. 
Moderation, not Terror, was to be the order of the 
day. None the less. Jacobinism died hard. The 
Mountain had been deprived of Robespierre; it had 
been forced to see Dantonists and Girondins return 
to the Convention; it had been unable to punish 
the belligerent Gilded Youth, even when they threw 
the body of Marat into the sewer; it had seen its 
clubs suppressed, and one of its most outspoken mem- 
bers in. the Convention imprisoned for several days 
for abusive speech; it had been unable to prevent the 
treaties of peace. The readmission of the Girondins 
was an explicit condemnation of all its actions since 
June 2, 1793, and none of its members could hope to 
escape punishment. As first fruits of this future, Col- 
lot-d'Herbois, Billaud-Varennes, Barere, and Vadier 



Return to Constitutional Government 273 

were all arrested, brought to trial, and sentenced to 
transportation. 

Unaccustomed to such defeats, the Mountain 
turned again to the masses of Paris, and organized 
insurrection. With utter disregard of its former sus- 
pension of constitutional government, its war-cry was 
"Bread and the Constitution of 1793!" Again crowds 
of frenzied women tried to intimidate the legislators, 
and on April i, 1795 (12th Germinal, year III), a mob 
forced its way into the Convention. For four hours it 
howled and threatened violence, until at last the 
wealthier sections of Paris armed themselves, and under 
the direction of General Pichegru, came to the relief 
of the Convention. Then the mob fled. As a result 
of this riot several members of the Mountain were 
arrested on the explicit charge of having been Terror- 
ists, and a little later the occurrence or danger of 
riots in Amiens, Rouen, Marseilles, and Toulon led 
to the arrest of still others of its members. 

The struggle at last resolved itself to this: Could 
the Convention draw up a constitution that should 
incorporate the new moderatism and the experience of 
the six years of revolution, or would the Jacobins be 
able to intimidate it into enforcing the radically demo- 
cratic Constitution of 1793? 

The issue was joined May 20, 1795 (ist Prairial). 
The Jacobins, after careful preparation, again sum- 
moned the people to insurrection, declared the end 
of the revolutionary epoch, the dismissal and arrest 
of the members of the existing government, the estab- 
lishment of the Constitution of 1793, and summoned 



274 The French Revolution 

a new Assembly to meet within a month. A desperate 
mob again filled the Convention Hall. So unexpected 
was the uprising that the Convention was totally 
unprepared; but it dared oppose its foes even after 
they had killed the deputy Feraud. Boissy d'Anglas, 
the president of the day, respectfully saluted the 
bleeding head of his colleague, but though pikes were 
at his breast, refused to put the motions demanded 
by the mob. The Mountain thereupon passed them 
all, and France was apparently again in the hands of 
the Jacobins. But it was only for a few hours. Again 
the wealthier sections armed, and their troops with 
fixed bayonets cleared the hall of its murderous invad- 
ers. Order was restored, the votes were annulled, 
and fourteen deputies who had aided the rioters were 
arrested. The next day an attempt was made to 
renew the disorder, but it proved unsuccessful. Six 
members of the Mountain who had been leaders of the 
uprising were arrested, brought before a military com- 
mission, and condemned to death. They all stabbed 
themselves with the same dagger, three fatally. The 
others were promptly guillotined. Then, in order to 
prevent a repetition of such disturbances, the Conven- 
tion authorized General Menou to use troops in dis- 
arming the Faubourg Saint Antoine. Not content 
with this drastic measure, it put him in command of a 
permanent guard for itself. 

While thus the Convention was crushing that aggres- 
sive minority which had been so long its master, it 
was forced also to repress royalist uprisings and con- 
spiracies. The middle course between Jacobinism 
and royalist reaction was not easy to hold, and with 



Return to Constitutional Government 275 

the executive powers divided among sixteen commit- 
tees strong government was difficult. Every day 
pointed to the army as the one certain means of main- 
taining order. How insufficient was ordinary muni- 
cipal government in dealing with violence, appeared 
in the "White Terror," or anti-Jacobin violence, that 
swept over the Republic, and particularly southern 
France. The vengeance of the French middle class is 
always as hideous as the uprising of the proletariat, 
and in 1795 the royalists, the "aristocrats," and the 
bourgeois inflicted on the Jacobins the same horrors 
they had themselves suffered at the hands of the sa7js- 
culoties. Anti'^Jacobin clubs were formed with the 
names of "Companies of Jehu," "Companies of the 
Sun," and the massacres of September, 1792, were 
repeated, with characters reversed. In Marseilles 
several hundred former Terrorists had been arrested 
and lodged in prison. -On June 5, 1795, rnany of them 
were massacred,^ and then the prison was set on fire, 
many of the prisoners being burnt alive. Several of 
the murderers were arrested, but released without 
even so much as a trial. In Tarascon Jacobins were 
thrown from the top of a tower upon the rocks of the 
river-bank; in Lyons, Avignon, in fact in twenty 
departments, similar acts of vengeance were perpe- 
trated. 

Such disorders were interpreted by royalists and 
anigres to indicate a desire on the part of France 
for a counter-revolution against the Republic. Not 
only did Bourbon cliques begin to reassert themselYCs, 
but in the Vendee the* emigres attempted civil war. 

^The total number ot those butchered was about 200. 



276 The French Revolution 

The efforts of the Convention to pacify either Brittany 
or the Vendee had not been successful, and discontent 
was growing rapidly among their peasantry. A heroic 
Vendean, Charette, who had maintained a small royal- 
ist army, was promised aid by England and the 
brothers of Louis XVI. An expedition composed of 
about 6,000 men, including French prisoners of war 
and 1,500 emigres^ was fitted out in England, and landed 
on a sandy point in Quiberon Bay, prepared to advance 
upon France. Had the Bourbon princes promised 
the nation the reforms accomplished by the Constitu- 
ent Assembly, it is not impossible that they might have 
found themselves at the head of a formidable uprising; 
but they had not learned the lessons later to be taught 
by the Napoleonic era, and they denounced the Consti- 
tutionalists as disguised traitors, more worthy of the 
rack and gallows than the Jacobins. At the same 
time that they thus alienated the liberal party, their 
agents succeeded in antagonizing the leaders of the 
Vendee, and through jealousy of the English and their 
share in the expedition, in preventing any royalist 
movements in Brittany. The leaders of the expedition 
itself could not act in harmony, and blunders were 
made at every step. Under these conditions the 
Quiberon invasion could be nothing but a fiasco. 
The republican forces under General Hoche swept all 
before them, and shut up the entire invading army, 
as well as large numbers of Vendean peasants, in an 
indefensible fort erected on the sandy point. When 
this was taken by a night attack, the ^migre's^ with the 
Vendean women and children, retreated to the extreme 
end of the point, and there attempted to embark in 



Return to Constitutional Government 277 

the English ships. But again their effort failed, and 
the wretched survivors were forced to surrender. 
The women and children were released, but a court- 
martial found six hundred of the prisoners guilty of 
treason, and they were shot. 

A short time later, the Count d'Artois made 
a second attempt at invasion, but was too much of 
a coward to face the republican troops, and finally 
returned to England, leaving Charette to his fate.' 

Thus relieved from royalist anarchy and royalist 
invasion, the Convention turned to the duty for which 
it had originally been summoned, the making of a con- 
stitution. Even while the emigres were at Quiberon 
a committee, of which Boissy d'Anglas was chairman, 
reported the first draft of such a document, in which, 
after a review of the work of the Constituent Assem- 
bly and the Terror, n insisted that the legislature 
should consist of two chambers, and that the legisla- 
tive and executive branches should be independent>^ 
These two principles were embodied in the Constitu- 
tion of 1795. The legislature was to consist of two 
Councils, that of the Five Hundred and that of the 
Ancients, each to be elected by electors chosen by the 
people. An executive body, known as the Directory, 
was to be established, consisting of five members, one 
of whom should retire every year, to be chosen by 
the Ancients from a list submitted by the Council of 
the Five Hundred. The influence of the boui-geoisie 
was felt in the provision that all officials should be 
property-holders, and that, although the suffrage was 

'He was captured and shot March 29, 1796. The Vendue was not finally 
pacified till August, 1796. 



278 The French Revolution 

declared a natural right, all persons should be 
excluded from voting who did not pay some kind of 
tax. Freedom of labor, commerce, religion, and the 
press was established; all political clubs were prohib- 
ited ; the emigres were forever outlawed, and the title 
of confiscated lands was guaranteed to their new 
holders. The Directory was to have full control over 
military affairs and the various agents of the govern- 
ment. It had, however, no power of initiating 
measures, or of dissolving the Councils.^ As the 
legislature had full control of pecuniary grants, it is 
obvious that a deadlock was always possible, and that 
it could be broken only by a coup d'etat on the part of 
one or the other branches of the government.^ 

In many ways the new constitution was evidently 
a return to the ideas of the Constituent Convention, 
and in so far favored the royalist reaction.^ The 
Convention, however, was farthest possible from plan- 
ning a reestablishment of the monarchy, and remem- 
bering its own history under the Terror, was deter- 
mined that the government about to be established 
under the new constitution should abandon neither 
republicanism nor the Terrorist delegates to the mercy 
of those who had injuries to avenge. The Quiberon 
affair and the boldness of the royalists of Paris made 

'When this was proposed, it was silenced by the cry, "That is the veto; 
that is monarchy!" 

^It is worth noticing that this Constitution of 1705 was preceded by a 
Declaration of the Rights and Duties of the Man and tne Citizen. 

^It should be remembered that the royalists were of two sorts, those 
favoring the Old Regime and those favoring the constitutional monarchy of 
the Constitution of 1791. The first group included the remains of the old 
privileged orders, while the second embraced many of the bourgeois. As 
has already been said, the absolute royalists hated the constitutional royal- 
ists as cordially as they hated the Jacobins. 



Return to Constitutional Government 279 

it necessary to provide for a continuance in power of 
those who had founded and saved the Republic. So 
unpopular was the Convention^ that if the country 
were granted absolutely free election, it was almost 
certain that reactionists would be elected to both the 
new Councils. With considerable sagacity, therefore, 
the Convention turned to the constitutional proviso 
for the renewal of but a third of each Council, and 
decreed that two-thirds of the new legislature should 
be chosen by the electors from its own membership, 
and that the Convention should fill any vacancies due 
to the election of the same man by different depart- 
ments. To intimidate the now insolent bourgeoisie^ it 
was also decreed that the Constitution should be laid 
before the armies for acceptance. At the same time, 
in order to insure order at the elections, large bodies 
of troops were assembled near Paris. 

These two decrees roused the wealthier sections of 
Paris to fury. If they were accepted by the people, 
for a year at least the Republic would be controlled 
by a legislature the majority of whose members had 
maintained the Terror. The approach of the troops 
added to the suspicion already aroused by the actions 
of the Convention, and section after section appeared 
before it to protest against the decrees. When their 
protests were unheeded, the bourgeois and reactionists 
determined to crush the Convention with the weapons 
of the mob. The issue became increasingly one to 
be determined only by military force. It was not 
merely a local crisis. All over France the agents of 

^Even their official sash became an object of derision when the deputies 
were on the street. 



2 8o The French Revolution 

the Convention were insulted and abused/ and the 
republican General Pichegru began to enter into nego- 
tiations with the Prince of Conde. 

Yet, when the Constitution and the decrees were 
submitted to the nation, despite all the efforts of Paris, 
they were accepted by large majorities.^ The 
announcement of this fact caused even wilder agita- 
tion in Paris, and by October 4th forty-four of the 
forty-eight sections of the capital were in open revolt 
and organizing armed resistance. In a short time an 
army of nearly 30,000 men of the National Guard, 
mostly bourgeois^ were ready to march upon the Con- 
vention. The government, in its turn, brought in the 
regiments it had concentrated near the city, and pre- 
pared for actual battle. Its general, Menou, however, 
proved to be in sympathy with the insurgents, and 
was removed. Had the National Guard advanced 
promptly, it might have crushed the Convention, but 
it preferred to spend the night of October 4th (12th 
Vendemiaire) in shouting and torchlight processions. 
The Convention meanwhile remained in permanent 
session, and among other steps for its defense 
appointed Barras commander-in-chief of its forces. 
Barras himself, to judge from his Memoirs^ was one of 
the greatest braggarts and liars of his day, but now, 
as at Thermidor, he was able to bring the necessary 
thing to pass. He had under him a force of per- 
haps 5,000 men, but no second in command. Imme- 

^At Chartres the market women forced the Convention's representative 
to lower the price of bread and then led him around the town on an ass, 
they the while shouting, "-Vive le roiy 

*Again but a small part of the citizens voted. The Constitution was 
accepted, 914,000 votes to 44,000, and the decrees, 167,000 to 96,000. 



Return to Constitutional Government 281 

diately he turned to one of his friends, then a clerk in 
the Topographical office, Napoleon Bonaparte, a young 
Corsican of twenty-five, a former friend of Robes- 
pierre, who had distinguished himself in tlie siege 
of Toulon, but who had been discharged from the 
army on account of his refusal to accept a transfer- 
ence from the artillery to the infantry. Bonaparte's 
professional sensitiveness had brought him to narrow 
circumstances, and had it not been for his brother 
Joseph's marriage with an heiress he would have been 
obliged to sell his books. Until his appointment to 
the Topographical office he seems to have lived a poor 
sort of life, and despite his numerous plans, to have 
grown half desperate from discouragements, but even 
more from the fatalism that marked his life. On 
August 12, 1795, h^ wrote his brother Joseph: "I can 
meet fate and destiny with courage, and unless 
I change I shall very soon not move out of the way 
when a carriage passes." Certainly he would have 
been counted a wild prophet who should have prophe- 
sied great things for this penniless clerk and discharged 
general, dependent upon a sister-in-law's bounty! 

Yet destiny, as Bonaparte believed, was before and 
with him. He was well known to Barras, who had 
discovered in his face a likeness to Marat, to whom 
he had been warmly attached, and remembering 
Toulon, and in despair of finding a man equally trust- 
worthy and energetic, he intrusted to him the pro- 
tection of the Convention. Bonaparte took half an 
hour for calculation, and with the true adventurer's 
instinct accepted the command (Vendemiaire 13). 
Not relying merely upon infantry, but true to his pro- 



282 The French Revolution 

fession — to the end of his days Bonaparte was a 
major in the artillery — he gathered all the cannon 
that were at hand in Paris ancj planted them about the 
building in which the Convention was assembled. In 
the morning the National Guard began to gather for 
its attack, but found itself confronted by Bonaparte's 
troops. For hours the two forces stood facing each 
other not fifty feet apart, neither willing to begin 
the struggle. At last, at half-past four in the after- 
noon, the leader of the insurrectionists gave the signal 
for attack. Instantly Bonaparte ordered his guns 
loaded with grape-shot, to be fired upon the crowd. 
Their execution was deadly; the members of the 
National Guard, crowded into the streets and quays, 
were cut down in great numbers. No man could stand 
that "whiff of grape-shot," and although they were 
brave, and were led by brave men, the insurrectionists 
after one last stand on the steps of St. Roch, broke 
ranks and fled to their homes. The army had saved 
the govermnent. 

For a moment there was the danger of a new reign 
of Jacobinism. The struggle of Vendemiaire had 
again brought together the Thermidorians and the sur- 
vivors of the Mountain, all of whom feared the pres- 
ence of new deputies, sure to be elected from their 
enemies. When the elections began, a week after the 
revolt, their fears were justified. The polls were 
largely attended, and not only were those members of 
the Convention elected who were least implicated in 
the Terror, but all of the new deputies were moderate, 
and even royalist in sympathy The Thermidorians 
and the Mountain declared that such a legislature 



Return to Constitutional Government 283 

would mean nothing less than an undoing of the 
Republic. They determined to suspend the Constitu- 
tion, prevent the meeting of the Councils, and main- 
tain the Convention, together with a commission of five 
of their number as a sort of executive. But the tide of 
Jacobinism had ebbed. The Convention was not to 
be coerced, and the bare exposure of the scheme by 
Thibaudeau was enough to defeat it utterly. On 
October 26th the Convention peacefully dissolved, after 
having declared a general amnesty for all political 
offenses committed since 1791, the rebels of the 13th 
Vendemiaire alone being excepted. 

The next day the new Councils assembled. Their 
first duty was to elect the 105 members who were still 
needed to complete the Council of the Five Hundred. 
In general, those chosen were unimportant persons, 
committed neither to the Moderates nor to the Moun- 
tain, Next, the Council of the Ancients, all of whom 
were required to be forty-eight years of age and mar- 
ried, was chosen by lot from the mass of delegates. 
Then came that most vital matter, the choice of the 
Directors. All the delegates knew that each new 
election would be certain to return an increasing num- 
ber of anti-Terrorists. Accordingly, to insure a con- 
tinuity of government, and above all, to provide against 
a counter-revolution in case the Councils should 
become royalist — a condition that was actually to 
arise — the Council of the Five Hundred, by carefully 
selecting its list of candidates, brought about the elec- 
tion of five Directors, each of whom had voted for 
the death of Louis XVI. 

Thus assured of at least a temporary continuance 



284 The French Revolution 

of the republican regime, France, after a revolutionary- 
interregnum of three years, began again to live under 
a constitution. It was not yet free from dangers. 
Within were a people oppressed by hunger, poverty, 
and disorder; a religious freedom that was hardly 
more than a name ; a national debt already of appalling 
size; a hopelessly depreciated currency, and a com- 
merce all but destroyed; a growing reaction toward 
constitutional monarchy, and in the Vendee the 
remains of actual civil war. Without were a war 
against England and Austria, and a swarm of emigres 
plotting invasion and vengeance. But with these dan- 
gers there were also resources. The struggle for 
rights had not been in vain. France was not only far 
better unified and organized than in 1789, it was more 
obedient to law and more intelligently interested in 
government. The peasants were already beginning 
to develop their newly acquired lands; the peace with 
Prussia and Spain, as well as the alliance with Holland, 
would soon revive commerce; the armies on the fron- 
tiers were the pledge of new victories. 

With the armies, indeed, lay the future of the 
nation. As absolutism had given way to constitutional 
monarchy, and constitutional monarchy had been fol- 
lowed by a republic at once revolutionary and war- 
ring, so the Republic by its victories was about to 
become something still different. What its future 
should be the Convention itself had irrevocably fixed 
by its decision that war was to continue until Europe 
recognized the Rhine as the boundary of the Repub- 
lic. For out from this war was to come, directly and 
rapidly, the military empire of Napoleon Bonaparte. 



Return to Constitutional Government 285 

Strictly speaking, however, the Empire formed no 
stage of the Revolution. To trace its rise would be 
to watch the development of no new popular spirit, 
such as that which led to the calling of the States 
General and the destruction of the Old Regime. It 
would rather be to record a succession of changes in 
the form of government accomplished with the assent, 
but not the assistance of the nation. A coup d'etat is 
not a revolution, and the rise of Bonaparte was due to 
the army, and not to a new idealism. Yet he was none 
the less a legitimate product of the Revolution, and 
without him the work of the six years we have described 
would very largely have disappeared. His marvelous 
success was something more than that of a mere 
adventurer or soldier. Wherever his influence was 
felt the spirit of the Revolution was also felt. That 
neither he nor the Revolution gave continental Europe 
the constitutional liberty of America may well be 
admitted; but wherever his influence extended, feudal 
privileges, absolute monarchy, abuses of many sorts, 
vanished, and in their places came, though in varying 
degree, political equality, and constitutional govern- 
ment. And in these blessings enjoyed so generally 
by western Europe, as well as in the acknowledged 
right of every man to life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
happiness, we must see the inestimable blood-bought 
results of the years 1789-1795. So true is it that the 
French Revolution by perpetuating the results of a 
century's political and intellectual evolution began a 
new epoch in European politics and thought. 



May 


5. 


June 


17. 


June 


20. 


June 


23- 


June 


27. 


July 


2. 


July 


14. 


Aug. 


4. 


Oct. 5, 6. 


June 


19. 


July 


14. 


Sept. 


29. 


April 


2. 



CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY 

1789 May 5. Opening of the States Generals. 
The Third Estate constitute, itself the Nationa 

Assembly. 
The Oath of the Tennis Court» 
The Royal Session. 
The union of the three orders in the 
Constituent Assembly. 
Attempted coup d'etat of the court. 
Fall of the Bastille. 
End of the feudal system. 
The King brought to Paris. 

1790 June 19. Abolition of nobii ty. 
Festival of the Confederation. 
Creation of 80,000,000 assignats, 

791 April 2. Death of Mirabeau. 

June 21-25. The flight to Varennes. 

July 6. Appeal by Emperor Leopold to sovereigns of 
Europe in behalf of Louis. 
The Massacre of the Champs de Mars. 
Treaty between Prussia and Austria against 

France. 
Treaty of Pilnitz. 
Constitution accepted by Louis. 
First sitting of the 
National Legislative Assembly. 
Massacres at Avignon. 

Petion the Girondin elected mayor of Paris. 
1792 Feb. 7. Treaty between Prussia and Austria to quell 
the disturbances in France. 
Mch. 30. Property of emigrants confiscated. 
April 20. Declaration of war against Austria. 
287 



July 


17- 


July 


25. 


Aug. 


27. 


Sept. 


13- 


Oct. 


I. 

XT A 


Oct. 


ISA 
30. 


Nov. 


17. 


Feb. 


7. 



288 The French Revolution 

June 8. Louis vetoes bill providing for military camp 

at Paris. 
June 12, 13. Girondin ministry dismissed. 
June 20. The mob at the Tuileries. 
June 26. First Coalition formed against France. 
July II. The country decreed to be in danger. 
Aug. 10. The sack of the Tuileries. 
Aug. II. Louis suspended. 

Aug. 13. The royal family imprisoned in the Temple. 
Sept. 2-6. Massacres in the prisons at Paris. 
Sept. 20. "Cannonade at Valmy." 

Sept. 21. End of the Legislative Assembly; opening 
of the 

National Convention. 
Declaration of the Republic. 
Beginning of the Republican calendar. 
The Convention promises aid to all nations 
desiring to overthrow their kings. 
1793 Jan. 15-20. Trial and execution of Louis XVL 

The Convention declares war against England 

and Holland. 
War declared against Spain. 
The great Coalition formed against France. 
Mch. 10, II. Institution of the Revolutionary Tribunal. 
Rebellion of the Vendee. 
Institution of the Committee of Public Safety. 
Defection of Dumouriez. 
First law of the Maxi77iu?u. 

Downfall of the Girondins. 

French ports blockaded. 

Marat assassinated. 

Constitution of 1793 accepted (but never en- 
forced). 

The levy <?;z masse. 

Law against " Suspects." 

The government declared revolutionary till a 
peace. 



Sept. 


22. 


Nov. 


19 


Jan. I 


5-20. 


Feb. 


I. 


Mch. 


7. 


Mch. 


9- 


Mch. 


10,1 


Mch. 


II. 


Mch. 


25. 


April 


I. 


May 


4. 


May 


30. 


June 


2. 


June 


8. 


July 


13- 


Aug. 


10. 


Aug. 


23- 


Sept. 


17. 


Oct. 


10. 



Oct. 


1 6. 


Oct. 


al- 


Nov. 


io. 


Dec. 


4. 


Jan. 


21. 


Feb. 


4- 


Mch. 


24. 


Apr. 


5. 



Chronological Summary 289 

Execution of Marie Antoinette. 
Execution of the Girondins. ^ 

Institution of the " Worship of Reason." 
Organization of the revolutionary government. 

1794 Jan. 21. Terror at its height in Nantes. 
Slavery abo Hshed in Frenc h, colonies. 
Execution of the Hebertists. 
Execution of Danton and the Dantonists. 
The supremacy of Robespierre. 

June 8. Festival of the Supreme Being. 

Law forbidding counsel to persons brought 
before the Revolutionary Tribunal. 
July 26-28. Fall and execution of Robespierre. 
Aug. 12. The Revolutionary Tribunal reorganized. 
Aug. 24. Powers of the Committee of Public Safety 

lessened. 
Oct. 12. Clubs forbidden to correspond in their own 
names. 
The Jacobin Club suspended. 
Amnesty offered the Vendee. 
Girondins readmitted to the Convention. 
The Maximum repealed. 

1795 Jan. 19. Conquest of Holland. 
Treaty of peace with Prussia. 
"The White Terror." 
The mob attacks the Convention. 
The Catholic religion reinstated. 
Death of Louis XVIL 
Fall of the Mountain. 
Emigres surrender at Quiberon. 
Treaty of peace with Spain. 
The Constitution of the Year III adopted. 
All conquered countries on left of the Rhine 

incorporated in France. 
Insurrection of Vendemiaire 13. 
End of the Convention. 
France again under a Constitution. 



Nov. 


12. 


Dec. 


2. 


Dec. 


8. 


Dec. 


24. 


Jan. 


19. 


April 


5- 


April 


24. 


May 


I. 


May 


30- 


June 


8. 


June 


17- 


July 


21. 


July 


22. 


Aug. 


22. 


Oct. 


I. 


Oct. 


5. 


Oct. 


26. 


Oct. 


28. 



INDEX 



PAGE 

Absolutism, development of — 2-4 

D'Aiguiiion, on the 4th of August 139 

D'Alembert, "resurrection" of, 
49; and Encyclopedia 61, seq. 

American Revolution, influence 
of 100 

Army, under the Old Regime, 27, 
seq.; reorganized by Con- 
stituent Assembly, 163; offi- 
cers untrue to the Assembly 169 

Artisans, condition of, under Old 
Regime,36; and 4th of August 142 

Abbots 43 

Artois, Count de, 102; at head of 
camp of emigres, 190; at- 
tempts at civil war 239, 277 

Assembly. See Notables, Con- 
stituent Assembly, Legisla- 
tive Assembly. 

Assignats, origin of, 160; new is- 
sue of, 161; depreciation of, 
226, 245,270; new issues 261 

Atheism, under Old Regime, 48; 
of Encyclopedists,^ 62; Vol- 
taire and, 85; of Hebertists. 247 

August 4, 1789, events of 139, seq. 

August 10, 1792, events of. .. 199, seq. 

Austria, forms secret agreement 
with other European powers, 
176; declaration of war 
against 192 

Auvergne, revolt of 239 

Avignon, revolution at 174 

Baboeuf 49 

Bailly, Mayor of Paris, 135; and 
the massacre of the Champs 

Ae Mars 180 

Bafnkruptcy. proposals of 112 

Barbaroux, Girondin, 199, 224, 225 n. 

Barere 229, 272 

Barnave, representative.. iSi, 178, n. 
Barras, on mission, 241; fears 
of, 262; and Thermidor, 263- 

265; and Vendemiaire 280 

Bastille, fall of, 128, seq.; sketch 
of its history, 130; impor- 
tance of its fall 134 

Berthier, murder of 134 

B^njon, Parlement of, calls 
for States General 103 



PAGE 

Billaud-Varennes, on the Com- 
mittee of Public Safety, 229, 
230; opposed to Danton, 2S5; 
on the duties of the Republic, 
259; opposed to Robespierre, 
262; and Thermidor, 263-265; 
sentenced to transportation. 272 

Bishops, skepticism of 46 

Brissot, Girondin, 188; opposed 
by Danton, 190; opinion as 

to treaties 191 

Blackstone, on France 3 

Boissy d'Anglas, on i Prairial, 

274; and Constitution of 1795. 277 
Bonaparte, Napoleon, on August 
10, 1792, 203; at Toulon, 241; 
on Vendemiaire, 281; and the 

Revolution 285 

Bordeaux, terror at 240 

Bourgeoisie, origin, 24; hated by 
peasants and artisans, 25, 
173, 179; growing importance 
of, 26, 34; skepticism of, 48; 
credulity of, 48, seq.; share in 
early revolution, 141; retire 
from clubs and politics, 172. 
173; powers after Thermi- 
dor 267, 277 

Breze, master of ceremonies 122 

Brienne, Lomenie de, urges per- 
secution, 47; minister, 107, 
seq.; plans coup cVetat, 109; 

dismissed no 

Brigands 11 

Broglie, and the attempted coup 

d'etat, 128; flight of 136 

Brunswick, Duke of, manifesto 

by 198 

Buzot in Constituent Assembly, 
151; attempts revolt, 224; 
death of 225, n. 

Cagliostro 49, seq. 

Calas and Voltaire 47 

Calendar, revolutionary 247 

Calonne, administration of, 104, 
seq.; financial policy, 104; 
summons the .\ssembly of 

Notables, 105; dismissed 106 

Calvinists and political office 47 

Capitaineries 20 



291 



292 



The French Revolution 



PAGE 

Carmagnole, the — 205 

Carnot, on the Committee of 
Public Safety, 229, 230, 242; 
opposed to Robespierre. — 262 
Carrier, deputy, at Nantes, 237, 
seq.; recalled, 254; executed 268 

Caussidiere, at Bastille 131 

Cazatte 49 

Chambers, Robert 61 

Charette 276, seq. 

Charrier 239 

Chateaubriand, on three stages 

in history of nobility 14 

Chatelet, Madame du, and Vol- 
taire 39 

Chesterfield, foresaw revolution 10 
Church, intiuence of, 46; perse- 
cutes Protestants, 46, seq.; 
causes of Revolution's ha- 
tred of, 50; lands of, taken 

by the State 161 

Clergy, exempted from taxation, 
14, i5,n.; privileged and un- 
privilegecl, 42; gifts to crown, 
14; numbers of, 43; grants 
to, i5; wealth and income 
of, 43; as feudal lords 45; 
under the constitution of 
1791, 162; and the Vendee, 46; 
liberal spirit in, 86; refuse to 

take the civic oath 162 

Clubs, 172, n. See also Jacobin 
Club, Cordelier Club, Feuil- 
lant Club. 

Cluny. minister 95 

Coalition, formed, 220; discord 

in 260 

Colbert 55 

Collot d'Herbois, in Commune, 
208; on the Committee of 
Public Safety, 229, 230; at 
Lyons, 240; opposed to Dan- 
ton, 255; to Robespierre, 262; 
sentenced to transportation. 272 
Commerce, improvement in, 

under Louis XVI 96 

Committee of General Security. 231 
Committee of Public Safety, his- 
tory of, 229, seq., 246; over- 
comes the Commune, 254; 
and the Dantonists, 255; re- 
organized 267 

Commune, in Old Regime 25 

Commune of Paris, 149; intiuence 

of 170 

Commune of Paris, the insurrec- 
tionary, 204. 207, seq., and 

massacres of September 212 

Commune of Paris, in later part 

of Revolution, and religion, 

247, 249, 252; struggle with 

Committee of Public Safety, 

252, seq. 



PAGE 

"Companies of Jehu" 275 

"Companies of the Sun" 275 

Constituent Assembly, abolishes 
feudalism, 139, seq.; comes to 
Paris, 150; draws up consti- 
tution, 154, seq.; order in, 154; 
permanence of work of, 155; 
ecclesiastical policy, 161, 162; 
difihculties of, 169; "self-deny- 
ing ordinance of 183 

Constitution of 1791, the process 
of drawing it up, 138, seq.; 
provisions 0I, 156. seq.; ac- 
cepted by Louis XVI 180 

Constitution of 1793, 227, seq.; 
suspended, 228; demanded 
by the Jacobins 273 

Constitution of 1795 277, seq. 

Convention, the, summoned, 207; 
and of 283 

Corday, Charlotte, assassinates 
Marat 240, n. 

Cordelier Club 172 

Corvee, forced labor in public 
works, abolished by Turgot. 92 

Councils of State 4 

Council, Provisional Executive, 
after August 10, 1792 207 

"Country in Danger" 198 

Court at Versailles, 31; extrava- 
gance of, 33; morals of 38 

Couthon, on the Committee of 
Public Safety, 229, 230; at 
Lyons, 240; supports Robes- 
pierre, 263; executed 264 

Curates, under Old Regime, 42; 
join Third Estate 120, 122 

Custine 214, 221, 243 



Danton, and Cordelier Club, 172, 
179; character of, 185, seq.; 
and August 10, 1792, 200, seq.; 
minister of justice, 207; and 
massacres of September, 
210; in Convention, 215; and 
foreign war. 221; and the ter- 
ror, 242; favors moderation, 
254; overthrown and exe- 
cuted by Robespierre .. .255- 257 
Dantonists, after Thermidor, 266, 272 

Dauphine, assembly of 115 

Debt, of France, history of.. 95, seq. 

Declaration of rights 139, 155 

Departments, founded 157 

Desmoulins, Camile, on July 12, 
1789, 128; member of Cor- 
delier Club, 172; and August 
10, 1792, 200; favors modera- 
tion, 254; attacked and guillo- 
tined 255, 257 

De Stael, on freedom of thought 
in absolutism 70 



Index 



^^93 



PAGE 

Diamond necklace, affair of 38 

Diderot, reaction from, 48; and 
Encyclopedia, 61, seq.; and 

natural man 63 

Directory, the 277, 283 

Dumoiiriez, made minister, 195; 
in the low countries, 214; de- 
feated and deserts 221 

Emigrants. See Emigres. 
Emigration, the first or "joyous" 136 
Emigres, camps of, 176; dangers 
from, 190-192; attempt civil 

war, 276, seq.; outlawed 278 

Encyclopedia, 61, seq.; destruc- 
tive intluence of 61 

Encyclopedists 62, 63 

England, affair of Nootka Sound, 

169; war with 220 

Etiquette, changes in.. .187, 214, 247 
E.Ktravagance of court 33 

Family life, under Old Regime.. 39 

Famine, threatened in 1787 114 

Fauchet, Girondin 191 

Federation. Festival of 167 

Feraud, killed 274 

Feudal dues, amount of 15 

Feudalism, remains of, 19, seq.; 
reaction toward, 22; and the 

clergy 45 

Feuillant Club 171 

Finances, of Old Regime, ch. 8; 
at opening of States General, 

112; under Necker 159 

Flesselles, murder of 134 

FItniry, Joly de, minister 102 

Fleury and Unigenitus 75, seq. 

Flogging in army 29 

Foulon, murder of 134 

Fouquier-Tinville, and Revolu- 
tionary Tribunal, 231, n.; trial 

and e.xecution of 267 

France, population of 11, 23, n. 

Francis II. of Austria 192 

Franklin in France 100 

Freedom of thought absent un- 
der Old Regime 70 

Freron 242 

Friends of the Constitution, So- 
ciety of. See Jacobin Club. 
Frog marshes, beaten by peas- 
ants 20 

Gabelle, or salt tax 17 

Germinal 12th, revolt of 273 

"Gilded Youth," the 269, seq. 

Girondins, first appearance of, 
184; policy of, 185, 188; plan 
war, 189; form a ministry, 

g3; attack Louis, 197; in the 
invention, 215; struggle 



PAGE 

with Mountain, 216, seq.; and 
death of Louis XVI., 220; fall 
of, 221, seq.; attempt civil 
war. 224, 225; fate of, 225, n., 
232; survivors reinstated in 

Convention 268 

Government according to Rous- 
seau 68 



Hebert, and Cordelier Club, 172; 
and Commune, 248; and 
Feast of Reason, 248; strug- 
gle with Robespierre, 253; 

executed 254 

Holland conquered 271 

Hulin II 

Hume and atheists 48 

Hunting, privilege of 20 

Intendants 6 

Intendances 6 

Illuminati, Society of 48, 49 

Jacobin Club, origin of, 171; affili- 
ated clubs, 172; became a 
radical minority. 173; oppose 
La Fayette, 176; and elec- 
tions to Legislative Assem- 
bly, 184; supremacy of, ch. 

15; suppressed 268 

Tales, revolt at 169, 239 

Jansenists, struggle with Jesuits 

74. seq. 

Jefferson, on the Revolution . iii, 114 

Jemmapes, battle of 214 

Jesuits, struggle with Jansenists 74 

Joseph II. of Austria 89 

Jourdan (of Avignon) 174 

jourdan. General 243 

""une 20, 1792, events of 195, seq, 

une 2, 1793 222, seq. 

ulien 238 

La Fayette, and America, 85; 
made Commandant of the 
National Guard, 135; on 5th 
and 6th October, 146. seq.; 
great power of. 149; called 
Cromwell-Grandison by Mir- 
abeau, 153; refuses to unite 
with Mirabeau, 153, 175; at 
Festival of the Federation, 
167; and the Jacobin Club, 
171; hated by Jacobins, 176; 
and others, 195; after 20th of 
June, 197; deserts 208 

Lamballe, Madame, 18; mur- 
dered 211 

Launay, de, commander of the 
Bastille 131, seq. 



294 



The French Revolution 



PAGE 

Lavater 49 

Law, idea of, according to Mon- 
tesquieu 53 

Land tenure 19 

Legendre 172 

Legislative Assembly, meets, 
i82j elections to, 183; parties 

in 184 

Le Mere, Jansenist priest 78 

Lettres de cachet 8 

Lever of the King 32 

Liancourt, Duke 135 

Lit de justice, instances of 80 

Livre, value of 14, n. 

Louis XIV., conception ot 

France 3 

Louis XV , and absolutism, i, 3, 
4, 10; and -pacte de famine, 

18; death of 91 

Louis XVI., accession, 91; calls 
States General, no; after fall 
of Bastile, 135; declared to be 
the restorer of French liber- 
ty, 140; goes to Paris. 148; 
speech at the Assembly, 166; 
attempts flight, 176; petition 
for his removal, 179; com- 
municates with foreign pow- 
ers, 190, 193; declares war 
with Austria, 193; forms a 
Girondin ministry, 193; cour- 
age of, 196: and Aug. 10, 202; 
suspended, 203; trial and ex- 
ecution 218, seq. 

Louis XVII 241 

Lyons, terror at 240 



Malouet 151 

Mandat 201, seq. 

Mandrin 11 

Mantua, agreement of 176 

Marat, character, 144; his part 
in October 5th and 6th, 145, 
146; and Cordelier Club. 172; 
opposes war, 190; in Com- 
mune, 208; and massacres of 
September, 209, seq.; in Con- 
vention, 215; assassinated 
240, n.; body thrown in sewer 272 
Marie Antoinette, scandals con- 
cerning, 38; causes dismissal 
of Turgot,9o; growing hatred 
of, 100; attempts to check rev- 
olution, 127; refuses to ap- 
preciate La Fayette and 
Mirabeau, 143; insincerity 
of, 169, 193; treachery of, 195; 
suggests the manifesto of the 
Duke of Brunswick, 198; exe- 
cuted 232 

Market Women, suppressed 250 

Marseilles, men from 199 



PAGE 

Marseilles, terror in, 240; ''white 

terror" in 275 

Marseillaise, the ' 200 

Massacre of the Champs de 

Mars 179 

Massacres of September — 209, seq. 

Maurepas, minister 95 

Maxitnuin, law of, 245; modified, 

260; abandoned 270 

Mazzini on the French Revolu- 
tion 88, 89 

Menehould, town of 177 

Menou, General 274 

Mesmer 49 

Militia, under Old Regime 26 

Mirabeau (the elder), on peas- 
ants, 36; and his family 39 

Mirabeau, Gabriel Riquetti, 
Count de, early life of, 131, 
152, seq.; abandons his order, 
14; in States General. 112, 
120; at royal session, 122; on 
the work of the Assembly, 
137; foresees violence, 149; 
plans for benefit of the king, 
149, 167; prevented from be- 
coming minister, 157; aids 
Necker's financial scheme, 
159; favors assignats, 160; ac- 
cepts pension from the court, 
169; endeavors to use dema- 
gogues, 174; attacked by 
Jacobins, 17S, death of, 176; 
opinion as to Robespierre.. . 187 

Mirabeau, "Barrel'' 151 

Monks 43 

Montesquieu, on monarchy, 3; 
sketch of, 53; philosophy of, 
53, seq.; works of, 53, n.; influ- 
ence of 77 

Montgolfier 49 

Montmorin, minister of Louis 

XVI., 176; killed 211 

Morality under Old Regime 37, seq. 

Mounier T15, 151 

Mountain, the, in Legislative 
Assembly, 184; in Conven- 
tion, 215; struggle with Gi- 
rondins, 216; struggle with 
Moderates, 269; defeat of 
..273, seq. 

Nantes, Carrier at 237, seq. 

Narbonne, minister of Louis 

XVI 190, 192 

National Assembly, origin of, 

ch. 9; see especially 120 

National Guards, origin of, 129, 

135; in the provinces, 141; on 

October 5 and 6, 1789 146 

"Natural Man" and peasants, 

37; according to Diderot, 63; 

according to Rousseau.. 64, seq. 



Index 



295 



PAGE 
Nature, government according 

to 53 

Necker, made director of finance, 

?i5; financial policy, 97; re- 
orms attempted by, 98; 
issues compte rendu, 90; 
first resignation, 99; recalled, 
112; incompetence of, 118, 
156; dismissed, 128; recalled, 
131; hostility to Mirabeau, 
156; attempts to fioat loans, 

159; resigns finally 169 

Nice, annexed to France 214 

Noailles, Vicomte de, proposes 

abolition of feudal privileges 139 
Nobility, members and exemp- 
tions of, 13, seq.; exemption 
from taxes, 14; poverty of, 
19, 34; Lower, 13; skepticism 
of, 48; credulity of, 48, seq.; 
absentee landlords, 21; new, 
23; habits of, 40, n.; liberal 
spirit in, 80; emigration of.. 169 

Nootka Sound 169 

Notables, Assembly of, called 
by Calonne, io5; proceedings 
of, 105, seq.; and States Gen- 
eral, 107; significance of 107; 
dismissed by Brienne, 107; 
recalled 114 

Oath of loyalty to the Constitu- 
tion 166 

Oath of the Tennis Court 121 

October 5th and 6th, events of 
145, seq. 

Orders, struggle between, 119- 
123; union of 123 

Orleans, Duke of, 118; influence 
on the masses, 130, 135; 
driven to England, 149; exe- 
cuted 232 

D'Ormesson, minister 104 

Pamphlets, in 1789 126 

PalaisRoyal, excitement in, dur- 
ing July, 1789 128 

Paris, centralization of France 
in, 9; condition of inhab- 
itants 126 

Parlement of Paris, and Louis 
XIV., 3; struggle with gov- 
ernment over Unigenihis,']^, 
seq.; suppressed by Mau- 
peon,4, 82: burns books, 71; 
reinstated by Louis XVL, 93; 
character of, 82; struggle 

with" Brienne 108, seq. 

Parlements of Provinces 82 

Facte de famine 18 

Physiocrats 55 

Protestants, persecution of 47 

Par ordre vs. par tete 119, seq. 



PAGE 

Parties in the Constituent As- 
sembly, 150, seq.; in the Leg- 
islative Assembly, 184; in the 

Convention 215 

Pays d^ Election 5, 10 

Pays d'Etat 5, 10 

Peace of Basle 271, seq. 

Peasants, taxation of, i^, 37; pro- 
prietors of land, 19; forbidden 
to kill game, 20; poverty of, 
34-36; more fortunate, 35-36; 
compared with those of other 
European countries, 36; re- 
volts of, after the fall of the 

Bastille 135 

Peltier, and massacres of Sep- 
tember 209 

Persecution 46, seq., 78 

Petion,in Constituent Assembly, 

151; mayor of Paris.. ..201, 225, n. 
Petition for the removal of Louis 

XVI 179 

Philosophy, derived from Eng- 
land, 52; share in producing 
the Revolution, 72, 81, seq.: 
influence of, 83; wide spread 

of 89 

Pichegru 273, 280 

Pilnitz, declaration of 189 

Plenary Court of Brienne 109 

Pompadour, the 10 

Popular Sovereignty, before the 
Revolution, 86; in the Revo- 
lution i88 

Potatoes, peasants urged to cul- 
tivate them 86 

Prairial ist, revolt of 273, seq. 

Prairial22d, Law of, 262 

Privileged classes 13 

Provinces, number and classifi- 
cation, 5; abolished 157 

Prussia, secret treaty with Aus- 
tria, 176; declaration of Pil- 
nitz, i8g; war with, 191; peace 

of Basle 271 

Puysegur 49 

Quesnay, Francois 55, 56 

Quiberon, expedition to — 276, seq. 

Rabaut St. Etienne 181 

Reason, worship of^ 248 

Red flag 179 

Religion, decay of 46, seq. 

Republic, Montesquieu's idea of, 
55; not taught by Rousseau, 
69; established in France... 215 
Revolution, the French, due to 
a combination of political 
discontent and philosophical 
idealism, 72, ch. 6; germ of 
in struggle between Jansen- 
ists and Jesuits, 74; expected 



296 



The French Revolution 



PAGE 

in 1743, 76; and in i753-4i 79 
and n.; philosophy re-en- 
forces discontent, 81, seq.; a 
product of a general spirit, 
8g; recognized as existing, 
III, 117; supposed to have 
closed, 180; end of, 283; re- 
sults of 285 

Revolutionary spirit universal in 
eighteenth century 89 

Revolutionary Tribunal, origin 
of, 231, 256, n.; changes in, 
262; reorganized 267 

jKevolutions and revolts 73, seq. 

Rights, in philosophy of eight- 
eenth century, 58; danger- 
ous as basis of a philosophy. 88 

Robespierre, sketch of, 186; in 
Constituent Assembly, 151; 
in Jacobin Club, 171; declares 
the Revolution ended, 180; 
proposes self-denying ordi- 
nance to Constituent Assem- 
bly, 183; not a demagogue, 
187; opposes war, 190; op- 
poses insurrectionary Com- 
mune, 210; in Convention, 
215; attacked by Girondins, 
217; on the Committee of 
Public Safety, 229, 230; on 

Boverty, 243; struggle with 
[ebertists, 252, seq.; over- 
throws Danton, 255; his brief 
dictatorship, 257; character, 
257, 258; dictator, 257, seq.; his 
ideal republic, 258; enemies 
of, 262; friends of, 263; re- 
tires, 263; attacked, 264; 9 
and 10 Thermidor, 263-265; 
execution of 26$ 

Rohan, Cardinal de, and dia- 
mond necklace, 38; income, 
44; and Cagliostro 49 

Roland, made minister of Louis 
XVI., 193; dismissed, 195; in 
Council, 207; and Conven- 
tion 216 

Roland, Madame, approves bad 
literature, 37; enthusiasm for 
LouisXVI.,93,n.; and Giron- 
dins, 185; and loth of August, 
199; execution of 233 

Rousseau, foresees revolution, 
10; influence on family life, 
39; theism of, 48, 261; sketch 
of, 63, seq.; Dijon essaj^s of, 
64; chief works of, 65; influ- 
ence of 66, 188,197,259, 261 

Saint Just, opposed to Danton- 

ists, 255; executed 264 

Salons 40 

Salt, tax on 17 



PAGE 

Sans-culotte, meaning of 187 

Sans-culotte army, 232, 246; dis- 
persed, 254; disbanded 258 

Santerre, at Bastille, 131; on 
June 20, 1792, 196; and Au- 
gust 10, 1792 200 

Savoy, annexed to France 214 

September, massacres of... .208, seq. 

Servan, minister 207 

Sieyes, on Third Estate, 27; 
member of Constituent As- 
sembly 151 

Sinecures 18 

Smugglers, numerous, 11; of salt 17 

Social compact 68-70 

Socialism, tendencies toward, 
160, 170, 244, 246; reaction 

from 267 

Society of the Friends of the 

Constitution. See Jacobin 

Club. 

Sorbonne, the, on monarchy — 4 

Spain, and England, 169; secret 

treaty against France, 176; 

peace of Basle 271 

States General, the meeting of 
the representatives of the 
three Estates, call of, op- 
posed by Louis XV., 82; pro- 
posed by Parlement of Be- 
san5on, 103; proposed by La 
Fayette in the Assembly of 
Notables, 107; powers as 
stated by Parlement of 
Paris, T09; convoked, no; 
questions as to membership 
and election, 113, seq.; meth- 
od of election to, 115, n.; 
members in, 116; opening of, 
117; struggle over organiza- 
tion leads to the formation 
of the National Assembly 

119, seq. 

Sub-delegate (of Intendant)...7, 37 

Supreme Being 259, 261 

Swiss Guards 200, seq. 

Switzerland, secret treaty against 

France 176 

\ 

Taine, on taxes 15 

Talleyrand, childhood of, 40; en- 
thusiasm for Louis XVL, 03; 
opinion of Necker, 95; in the 
Constituent Assembly, 151; 
at Festival of the Federation 167 
Tallien, at Toulon, 241, 262; and 

Thermidor 263-265 

Tarascon, "white terror" in — 275 
Taxes, exemption from, 14; chief 
forms of, 15; indirect, 16; un- 
collected in 1789 159 

Tennis Court, oath of, 121, 235; 
purpose of 226, seq. 



Index 



297 



PAGE 

Terror, the ori^rin of, 225; organi- 
zation of tiie Republic under, 
225, seq.; results of, 243; con- 
structive side of, 249; life 
during:, 250; height of, 2S7, 

seq.; undoing of 265,266-268 

Thermidor, 9th and loth of. ..263-265 

Thermidorian party 266, seq. 

Third Estate, origin and div^i- 

sions of 23 

Thuriot, at Bastille 132 

Tithes 45 

Toulon, terror at 241 

Treasury, royal 7 

Turgot, at Limoges, 7, 57; reform 
administration of, 92, seq.; 
opposition to, 93; dismissal 
of 94 

Unigenitus, the Bull . . 74 and Passim 

Vadier 272 

Valmy, cannonade of 214 

Varennes, the flight of Louis 

XVLto 177 

Vendee, the, revolt of, 208; war 



PAGE 

and Terror in, 236; amnesty 
ottered to, 268;. royalists 

in 276, seq. 

Vendemiaire, revolt of 279, seq. 

Veto, Suspensive 156 

Vetoes, struggle over 193, seq. 

Vergniaud 197, 206, 219 

Vincent, Jean Claude 55 

Voltaire, love affairs, 39; and 
Calas, 47; sketch of, 58-60; 
and religion, 60, 61; destruc- 
tive influence of 61 

Walpole, Horace, quoted 48 

War declared 191 

Westermann, and August 10, 1792 

201, 243 

"White Terror" 275 

Workingmen. See Artisans. 
Women, uprising of, October 5, 

6, 1789 146 

Young, Arthur, and provincial 
towns, 6; and peasant wo- 
man, 24; at Versailles, 33; 
at Metz 87 



^My'33 



